Saunders Posted May 10, 2023 Share Posted May 10, 2023 Quote CollegeFootballNews: Wisconsin 2023 Preview The Wisconsin Badgers needed to pivot. The last Rose Bowl win was after the 1999 season, and the last Big Ten Championship came in 2012. Even worse, Wisconsin can't get by Minnesota lately, and Northwestern, Iowa, and Purdue represented the West in the last three Big Ten title games. But for those (hand raised) who happened to be around the program during most of an eight-year run of losing seasons - including a super-fun 4-29 stretch from 1988 to 1990 as the low point in an era that enjoyed just six winning campaigns from 1964 to 1992 - freaking out last year over things slipping seemed to be wee bit of a reach. Wisconsin - even with all of last year's drama after a 2-3 start - just finished its 21st straight winning season, won its eighth bowl game in the last nine years, and earned the distinction of being the winningest Power Five program not to make the College Football Playoff during the era. With that said, after winning a ton of games lately without enough big-time things to show for it, it was time to try something different. In 1989 a young, tan-rocking, sleep-deprived Barry Alvarez came in fresh off of helping Notre Dame win the national title, told everyone he was going to make Wisconsin great at college football, and then did it. Now it's Luke Fickell's job to use all that Alvarez built and tweak it just enough to push Wisconsin out of its comfort zone of success and into a whole other level. https://collegefootballnews.com/cfn/wisconsin-badgers-college-football-preview-2023-breakdown-prediction-top-players-win-total Quote HuskerOnline: Wisconsin Spring Preview As for Lepay’s win-loss record expectation, he said he’s been around long enough to learn not to set numbers. “I do know that the excitement level up here is higher than it’s been in a long time,” he said. “I just think people are familiar enough with Luke Fickell, and his performance as a coach, how good of a player he was back in back in the 90s. “At Ohio State and the way he has grown as a coach, first on the staff at Ohio State as the interim also in 2011, between Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer, but his work on Urban Meyer’s staff, and then obviously, what he’s done in Cincinnati. So fan expectations are extremely high.” Lepay did say that the usual expectation is for the Badgers to make a bowl game. “That has almost been a bit of an automatic here, which is very dangerous to say,” he said. “Wisconsin has been to a bowl game every year since 2002. A couple of years, it’s been just barely, obviously, this last year was a disappointing year by their standards. But not going to a bowl game would be that would be quite a blow here.” The “Voice of the Badgers” also thinks the Wisconsin will be a “strong contender” in the Big Ten West. https://www.on3.com/teams/nebraska-cornhuskers/news/nebraska-opponent-spring-review-wisconsin/ Quote Athlon Sports: #17 Wisconsin 2023 Preview It's a new era at Wisconsin with Luke Fickell taking over as the program's head coach following a successful stint at Cincinnati. The former Ohio State player is no stranger to life in the Big Ten thanks to his background with the Buckeyes and has a chance to get his tenure with the Badgers off to a fast start as the preseason favorite to win the West Division. New play-caller Phil Longo should open up the offense from his Air Raid roots, but this unit still goes through running back Braelon Allen. The defense returns eight starters and should be one of the best in the Big Ten. https://athlonsports.com/college-football/wisconsin-football-badgers-prediction-preview-2023 Quote Wisconsin Football Schedule 2023: Game Predictions 2023 CFN Preseason Prediction: 9-3 2022 Record: 7-6 Aug 26 OPEN DATE Sept 2 Buffalo W Sept 9 at Washington State W Sept 16 Georgia Southern W Sept 23 at Purdue W Sept 30 OPEN DATE Oct 7 Rutgers W Oct 14 Iowa W Oct 21 at Illinois L Oct 28 Ohio State L Nov 4 at Indiana W Nov 11 Northwestern W Nov 18 Nebraska W Nov 25 at Minnesota L https://collegefootballnews.com/cfn/wisconsin-football-schedule-2023-game-predictions-scores More to come... 1 Quote Link to comment
BigRedBuster Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 6 minutes ago, Mavric said: Meh...I'll believe it when I see it. Nebraska fans should know, from experience, that bringing in a new staff with a very different offensive philosophy is difficult to be good right from the start. It will be interesting to see if Wisconsin or Nebraska is better on offense by the end of the season. 1 2 Quote Link to comment
Husker in WI Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 22 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said: Meh...I'll believe it when I see it. Nebraska fans should know, from experience, that bringing in a new staff with a very different offensive philosophy is difficult to be good right from the start. It will be interesting to see if Wisconsin or Nebraska is better on offense by the end of the season. It's easier now when you can just grab a QB and WRs who have played in it from the portal. But yeah, it will be interesting - I think they'll be fine, and the pass-heaviness of the new offense is a little overstated. It'll be way more than Wisconsin has thrown the ball in the past, but Longo was close to a 50/50 run/pass split at North Carolina last year, and was 57-58% run in 2020/2021. This isn't Mike Leach, they'll still run it plenty - but I do think their defensive numbers will take a hit and I like our chances against them throwing more. 2 Quote Link to comment
Caliborn72 Posted September 16, 2023 Share Posted September 16, 2023 Georgia Southern is losing 14-28 despite their QB throwing 5 interceptions and fumbling once. Quote Link to comment
GSG Posted September 23, 2023 Share Posted September 23, 2023 Chez Mellusi looks to be done for the year Quote Link to comment
CheeseHusker Posted October 15, 2023 Share Posted October 15, 2023 Crowd shot today at Camp Randall vs Iowa. Fans seem much more apathetic than usual there. Might be a good time for a breakthrough victory there. We are due. 1 Quote Link to comment
Savage Husker Posted October 15, 2023 Share Posted October 15, 2023 Maybe off topic…but why did Chryst and UW go separate ways? Really hoping this is UWs “Callahan” moment where the old regime (Alvarez) is replaced with new (Fickell) and the identity is lost. Start poaching the hogs that built UWs OL dominance. 2 Quote Link to comment
JJ Husker Posted October 16, 2023 Share Posted October 16, 2023 Dangit! Now they may discover a backup QB that can actually operate the offense Fickel wants. I would’ve been more than happy to face Wisconsin with Mordecai. 1 Quote Link to comment
Red Five Posted October 16, 2023 Share Posted October 16, 2023 21 hours ago, Savage Husker said: Maybe off topic…but why did Chryst and UW go separate ways? Because the new AD felt that a Chryst led program had plateaued. Sure they could win 9 games each year playing in the B1G West. But in the new division-less B1G (where they would have to play more of the better teams) that wasn’t going to cut it. It’s something the brass at Iowa has yet to realize. Kirk-ball works against the horrible B1G West teams, but gets ran over when they play a high level team. I think it’s going to be a while until we see a legacy B1G West team in the CCG. There will be no more free passes for being the tallest midget. 1 Quote Link to comment
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