The Wisconsin Badgers are exactly where we all thought they would be at this point, 2-1. Wins against Western Illinois and Eastern Michigan, with the lone loss coming against Notre Dame. Heading into conference play, most Badgers fans are still not sure if this team is better than last year or will win more games. This first conference game may help determine that, against Penn State.
The Penn State game, while most people predict a loss for Wisconsin and Vegas has the Badgers as 9.5-point underdogs, is a litmus test. A chance for Wisconsin to showcase that they are truly on the rise. An upset at Beaver Stadium would do wonders for the perception of this team. But first, there are some things to clean up.
Wisconsin played a great game against Eastern Michigan, but these three things still have to be fixed before Saturday.
1. A complete game: Good start, good finish
Wisconsin has had two games in which they started fast and strong and one game in which they started like a train wreck but finished riding on a cloud. It's been a wild start to the season, but Wisconsin has yet to have a complete game. Where the effort, playcalling, energy, and finishing of plays all happened for 60 minutes.
To beat Penn State, the Badgers will need to have a complete game.
2. Reducing penalties
Penalties are one of the best ways to shoot yourself in the foot. The Badgers haven't been as clean as they need to be. Against Notre Dame, the Badgers had six penalties for 43 yards, while the Irish only had four penalties for 41 yards. Things were a little better against Western Illinois, with only four penalties for 40 yards.
Yet, the great game Wisconsin had against Eastern Michigan was a step in the wrong direction, with another six-penalty game for 55 yards. That's not ideal. And while having only 16 penalties through three games isn't a crazy number, it's still not ideal when you are taking on a ranked team. Those are self-inflicted wounds that you have to overcome.
3. Ground game
Finally, and maybe most obviously, the Badgers have to get the ground game going. Wisconsin only had 67 yards rushing against Notre Dame and only 117 against Eastern Michigan. Though if you take out Colton Joseph's 46 yards, it's only 71. That's not great.
The good game with 233 yards on the ground came against Western Illinois, but that also featured a 72-yard rush and 44 rushing yards from the quarterback position. So once again, take out the outliers, and it's not a great "pound the rock" sort of game. Wisconsin has only had one game with a 100-yard rusher.
Against Eastern Michigan, the leading rusher was Colton Joseph with nine carries for 46 yards. Darrion Dupree only had eight carries for 29 yards, and Nate Palmer had a similar line of seven carries for 29 yards.
This simply isn't good enough and won't help them win throughout the season. Now each game can be accounted for in one way or another. Justified by playing Notre Dame, or Western Illinois, or even the ground game wasn't needed against EMU. But this week, we want to see the ground game take off.
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