It may be overhyped, but the Wisconsin Badgers have one of the hardest schedules in college football for 2025. There is a silver lining to that hard schedule, and that's if they can pull off a few miracles. They have a much easier path to the College Football Playoff than other teams. According to Kelley Ford, because of Wisconsin's tough schedule, they would only need eight wins to be considered for a berth in the CFP.
How many regular season wins each team should need to be in the CFP at-large discussion based on their Schedule Difficulty
— Kelley Ford (@KFordRatings) June 23, 2025
The dotted divides each threshold. In the 9-win threshold, Texas A&M-Syracuse are closer to 8 than 10 while Northwestern-Tennessee are closer to 10 than 8 pic.twitter.com/qMo8qNRb8P
Wisconsin's strength of schedule presents a unique opportunity for shocking the world
The big questions are why and how Wisconsin can pull off eight wins. Why would they only need eight wins, and how could they do it? The why is because of the wins that they would have to get to eight wins. The how is below.
Two confident wins:
Miami (OH)
Middle Tennessee
One 'should be' wins:
Maryland
Two 'coin flip' wins:
Iowa
Minnesota
Let's say Wisconsin wins all of those above. That puts them at five wins. They would somehow need to get three more wins from Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon, Washington, Indiana, and Illinois.
The three lowest common denominators from that group are Michigan, Washington, and Illinois. That would be quite the run of eight wins. Now, the dotted line in that graphic above puts them on the lower side of eight wins, as Kelley Ford has slightly less confidence in the eight wins than the top group. So, let's assume they need to win nine to be sure to be in the College Football Playoff.
For kicks and giggles, we say they have won all the above-mentioned games: Miami (OH), Middle Tennessee, Maryland, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Washington, and Illinois. They would need to beat Indiana, Ohio State, Alabama, or Oregon to get nine. Yikes. Which is exactly why eight wins might do it, and nine wins would assuredly do it. That's an impressive eight to nine wins.