Iowa vs Wisconsin: What We’re Watching For

WHO: Wisconsin (5-4, 3-3 Huge Ten)
WHEN: 2:35 PM CT (Saturday, November 12)
WHERE: Kinnick Stadium (Iowa Metropolis, IA)
TV: FS1
ANNOUNCERS: Dan Hellie and Petros Papadakis
RADIO: Hawkeye Radio Community (TuneIn, or native listings) | SiriusXM Ch. 121 or 203 (app 966)
STREAM: FoxSports.com
MOBILE: Fox Sports activities app 
TWITTER: @IowaFBLive | @IowaAwesome | @IowaOnBTN
WEATHER: temps within the 40s, clear
LINE: EVEN (Whole: 35.0)

NOTE: Remember to observe all of the motion throughout the sport and chat together with your fellow Iowa followers within the Go Iowa Superior discord! (Extra data right here.)

Iowa and Wisconsin have been mirror picture packages in some ways for a number of years, however they’ve taken the doppelganger bit to a different stage this season. Each groups entered the 12 months with Huge Ten title aspirations and had been picked to complete 1-2 within the West; as an alternative they’re every 5-4 total and 3-3 in league play. They’ve even taken comparable paths to get to that time — each suffered disappointing early season dwelling losses in non-conference video games (Iowa State for Iowa, Washington State for Wisconsin), each had been on the flawed finish of some blowouts early in Huge Ten play (Ohio State and Illinois for Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio State for Iowa), and each have rebounded to play their greatest soccer in current weeks (every crew enters on a two-game profitable streak).

Regardless of their similarities, although, Wisconsin has often had the higher hand in these conferences. Kirk Ferentz received 4 in a row over Wisconsin from 2002 to 2005 and 6 of eight between 2002 and 2009, however Wisconsin has taken eight of ten matchups since then, together with 5 of the final six. Iowa’s solely win since 2015 got here within the COVID 12 months of 2020. In actual fact, Iowa hasn’t prevailed over Wisconsin in Iowa Metropolis with a full contingent of Iowa followers since 2008. That is been a minute. (Iowa did beat Wisconsin in Iowa Metropolis in 2020, however, once more, that was the COVID 12 months, when Huge Ten video games had been performed in all-but-empty stadiums.) 

It is uncommon which you could boil a sport right down to a single stat, however Iowa-Wisconsin comes fairly shut: it is all about operating the dang ball. Since 1999, the crew that wins the dashing battle has received the sport in 19 out of 21 conferences. (The exceptions: Iowa in 2009, after they rode 4 Wisconsin turnovers to a victory, and Wisconsin in 2001, after they “misplaced” the operating yards battle by a single yard, 173-172.) That is a fairly robust monitor file for a single stat. That stat ought to favor Wisconsin, historically one of many highest operating groups within the nation, however they have not been at their regular stage this season — they’re simply forty second nationally in dashing yards, averaging 183 yards per sport (their common of 4.9 yards per carry ranks thirty third nationally). In fact, that is nonetheless much better than Iowa — 119th nationally at 104 yards per sport (Iowa’s 3.2 yards per carry common ranks 117th). Iowa’s rush offense is coming off its greatest video games of the season, although: 178 yards and a couple of TD (5 YPC) towards Northwestern and 184 yards and 1 TD (5.3 YPC) towards Purdue. Wisconsin’s run sport can be coming off its greatest sport of the season: 278 yards and a couple of TD (6 YPC) towards Maryland. 

Iowa does boast the eighth greatest run protection within the nation (93 YPG), the 4th greatest run-per-carry common (2.6 YPC), and is tied for the fewest dashing touchdowns allowed (3). Formidable numbers from a protection that is been absolute nails just about all season. Wisconsin usually ranks among the many nation’s greatest in defensive stats as properly, however their protection has been good-not-great for many of this season: the Badgers rank twenty fourth in scoring protection (20.6 PPG), twenty third in whole protection (325.8 YPG), and twenty first in run protection (113.8 YPG). Can Iowa exploit these cracks in Wisconsin’s defensive armor? We’ll have a greater thought of how a lot of Iowa’s offensive enchancment over the previous few weeks might be credited to taking part in weaker defenses and the way a lot might be attributed to real offensive enchancment by Iowa after seeing how they fare towards the Badgers. 

One attention-grabbing wrinkle to the Iowa offense-vs-Wisconsin protection dialogue: the Badger move protection has been extra pedestrian than regular this season. It ranks simply fortieth nationally (212 YPG) and the 7.0 yards allowed per try ranks simply fifty fifth nationally. One factor the Badger secondary has been good at is forcing turnovers — whereas they’ve allowed 12 landing passes, they’ve additionally compelled 15 interceptions, 2nd most within the nation. Petras been taking part in clear soccer of late — 3 TD, 0 INT, 64% completion — however turnovers can generally snowball with him (4 INT vs Purdue final 12 months, 3 INT vs Kentucky within the Citrus Bowl, 2 INT vs Ohio State this season) and he did have one of many worst video games of his profession towards Wisconsin final season (9/19, 93 yards, 1 fumble misplaced). He is additionally at his worst below stress and Wisconsin’s 3-4 protection brings stress from bizarre angles. If Iowa’s offensive line can hold the pocket clear, Petras might be able to join on a couple of medium- and long-range passes towards Wisconsin’s softer-than-usual secondary. But when he is constantly below stress, the percentages of him making poor choices and including to Wisconsin’s interception tally go up considerably. 

PREDICTION 

The winner of this sport will preserve slim hopes of profitable the Huge Ten West (though simply how slim these hopes are might be decided by the Illinois-Purdue sport going down previous to this one); the loser may very well be headed to a 6-6 (or worse) season. No stress! Though stress is strictly what worries me about this sport — not any outdoors stress about potential Huge Ten West titles or journeys to the Huge Ten Championship Sport, however the literal stress introduced on the Iowa offense by the Wisconsin protection. Except for 2020, that 3-4 defensive look has constantly baffled Iowa’s offensive traces, created a number of sacks, hits, QB hurries, and turnovers, and likewise bottled up Iowa’s operating sport fairly successfully. Can an Iowa OL that is nonetheless fairly uncooked deal with the weirdness Wisconsin is bound to make use of to assault them? I’ll cautiously say “sure.” I feel the environment inside Kinnick Stadium might be fairly electrical, particularly because it will get darker out within the second half, and I feel a fired-up Iowa protection will make some large performs. And I feel Kaleb Johnson will outplay Braelon Allen — although not by a lot. 

IOWA 20, WISCONSIN 14