Michigan

Wisconsin opens season by hosting Western Michigan in Friday night matchup

Published

2 years ago

August 30, 2024

Press Room

Wisconsin opens season by hosting Western Michigan in Friday night matchup

(AP) – The Wisconsin Badgers will play host to the Western Michigan Broncos at Camp Randall Stadium on Friday.

The game will air on FS1 at 8 p.m. According to BetMGM College Football Odds, Wisconsin is favored by 24.5 points.

In their series history, Wisconsin leads 4-1.

WHAT’S AT STAKE?

Wisconsin would love to show how far it has come, particularly on offense, after going 7-6 each of the last two seasons. Wisconsin is attempting to improve to 16-0 in night games at Camp Randall Stadium against unranked teams. Western Michigan is seeking to beat a Big Ten school for the first time since 2016 when the Broncos defeated both Northwestern and Illinois while putting together an undefeated regular season under current Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck. Western Michigan ended that season by losing to Wisconsin 24-16 in the Cotton Bowl, which represents the last meeting between these two teams.

KEY MATCHUP

Western Michigan’s offensive line vs. Wisconsin’s defensive line: Center Jacob Gideon and guard Addison West lead an offensive line that must avoid getting pushed around for the Broncos to have any chance of pulling the upset. Gideon has 35 career starts, and West has 24. Tedi Kushi also is back after making 10 starts last year. Wisconsin lost its most experienced defensive lineman when James Thompson Jr. underwent season-ending surgery for an upper-body injury.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Western Michigan: RB Jalen Buckley rushed for 1,003 yards and 10 touchdowns on 189 carries as a redshirt freshman last season. He was named the Mid-American Conference’s freshman of the year and earned third-team all-MAC honors.

Wisconsin: QB Tyler Van Dyke, who transferred from Miami, is trying to bounce back from a 2023 season in which he struggled with injuries and threw a career-high 12 interceptions. The Badgers would love to see Van Dyke recapture the form he showed in 2021 when he threw 25 touchdown passes with only six interceptions and was named the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Rookie of the Year.

FACTS & FIGURES

Wisconsin is coming off back-to-back 7-6 seasons and enters the year outside the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time since 2016. That 2016 team went 11-3 and capped the year with that Cotton Bowl triumph over Western Michigan. … Western Michigan has a new offensive coordinator (Walt Bell), defensive coordinator (Scott Power), and special teams coordinator (Dan Sabock) after going 4-8 last year in head coach Lance Taylor’s debut season. … Western Michigan QB Hayden Wolff, who began his college career at Old Dominion, is working with his seventh different offensive coordinator in six seasons. … Wisconsin CB Ricardo Hallman had seven interceptions last season, tying Notre Dame’s Xavier Watts for the most by any Football Bowl Subdivision player.

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Michigan

Michigan man pleads guilty to using fake Social Security cards in $550K fraud scheme

Published

9 hours ago

April 17, 2026

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Michigan man pleads guilty to using fake Social Security cards in 0K fraud scheme

A Southfield man has pleaded guilty to illegally possessing driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and equipment to create fake documents, federal prosecutors said.

Jerome Antwan Andrews, 41, pleaded guilty Thursday to possessing the driver’s license information and Social Security numbers of more than 250 people in a scheme that caused more than $550,000 in fraud losses, U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon Jr. said.

As part of his plea agreement, prosecutors say Andrews admitted to having an embosser, a laminator, a card cutter and an ID card printer and admitted that his business model was aimed at creating and selling fake Social Security cards and driver’s licenses in the names of real people.

“Jerome Antwan Andrews and his criminal associates stole more than $1.5 million by submitting hundreds of fraudulent claims to a pandemic program intended to help unemployed American workers. Today’s conviction of Andrews represents yet another attack in our war against fraud. It sends a stern warning that my office will relentlessly investigate those bad actors greedily lining their pockets with U.S. taxpayer funds,” said Anthony P. D’Esposito, Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General.

Andrews faces up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine or twice the pecuniary gain or loss, according to prosecutors. He will be sentenced at a later date.

Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Department of Labor investigated Andrews’ case.

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Michigan

Northern Michigan lake drained after dam failure in Alcona County

Published

21 hours ago

April 17, 2026

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Northern Michigan lake drained after dam failure in Alcona County

Barton City — This week’s flooding across northern Michigan is being blamed for the collapse of a privately owned dam in Alcona County, washing away the small lake that the structure held back.

Buck’s Pond was reduced to mud this week after its privately owned dam failed, destroying the gravel road over the 94-year-old dam structure.

The dam burst around 8 p.m. Monday, sending all of the water in Buck’s Pond north through Comstock Creek to Hubbard Lake, a large recreational boating lake in Alcona County that’s ringed by summer cottages and year-round homes, said James Plohg, who owns property on the lake.

“As it was rising, it started like just washing little parts of it away,” Plohg told The Detroit News on Thursday. “And then it just got so big that it wasn’t able to contain it. And it just opened up.”

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy classifies the Buck’s Pond Dam as a low-hazard dam because its rupture has little downstream impact on other water infrastructure and property.

Lakes in the Green Association, a local homeowners group, owned the dam, according to state records.

It was last inspected in August 2017, according to records in the Michigan Dam Inventory, the state’s catalog of data on the ownership, age and condition of 2,552 dams scattered across Michigan’s Lower and Upper peninsulas.

State records indicate the dam was in “satisfactory” condition, able to withstand a 100-year flood and that it “meets applicable tolerable risk criteria.”

Plohg said the demise of the Buck’s Pond Dam will leave a hole in his and his neighbors’ remote corner of rural Alcona County, located between Oscoda and Alpena.

Plohg said he’s been in contact with state lawmakers who represent Alcona County, hoping they could secure state funding to rebuild the dam — and restore Buck’s Pond.

“It was beautiful,” Plohg told The News. “I mean, people come here to fish. There’s the beach over there. Little kids came to swim, picnics, meetings, a lot of boats, pontoons go around the island. We had (boat) parades on the lake. It’s not much of nothing right now.”

“This doesn’t describe how nice it used to be,” Plohg added.

clivengood@detroitnews.com

DavidG@detroitnews.com

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Michigan

Michigan man didn’t turn right on red. So another driver hit him with ax, police say

Published

1 day ago

April 16, 2026

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Michigan man didn’t turn right on red. So another driver hit him with ax, police say

70-year-old man arrested, faces assault charge

GRAND TRAVERSE COUNTY, Mich. – A Michigan man was struck with an ax after not turning right at a red light at an intersection on Tuesday, according to police.

Just before 2 p.m. on April 14, a 74-year-old man driving near the intersection of Woodmere and Hannah in Grand Traverse County sat through a red light instead of turning right, Local 4’s NBC affiliate in Traverse City reported.

Police said a 70-year-old Traverse City man was in a car behind the 74-year-old man and followed him to the Traverse Area District Library,

Once the 74-year-old man got out of his car, the 70-year-old man allegedly approached him and attacked him with an ax, injuring the 74-year-old in his left upper arm. Both men then left the area.

The 74-year-old man drove himself to a local hospital and is being treated for his non-life-threatening injuries.

The 70-year-old man was later arrested at his home and faces a charge of assault to do great bodily harm.