Wisconsin Football: 3 takeaways from win over Northwestern

Wisconsin football racked up its first conference victory of the year, to stay undefeated, with a 33-24 win over the Northwestern Wildcats.

The No. 10 Wisconsin Badgers opened the Big Ten portion of their schedule in Week 5 against the Northwestern Wildcats. If Wisconsin continues to win big games, they will find themselves in the thick of College Football Playoff talk soon. A lot of that banks on the play of starting quarterback Alex Hornibrook.

Yet, the Badgers do have one of the clearest paths to a Power Five conference title game of any team in the country. The Big Ten West does not have much competition for a team as good as Wisconsin. The Iowa Hawkeyes, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Minnesota Golden Gophers and Northwestern should present a challenge as well.

However, since Wisconsin already got Northwestern out of the way, they’re on the right path to the Big Ten Championship Game. Losing one game, or less, and winning the Big TenChampionship would easily put the Badgers in the Playoff field.

Northwestern’s junior starting quarterback Clayton Thorson has been on the receiving end of some recent NFL Draft hype. For that to prove realistic, Thorson needs to make big plays to carry the Wildcats in games like this.

One of the big problems for a matchup like this for Northwestern is that they rely heavily on the ground game. Running back Justin Jackson is one of the best in the Big Ten and he has an NFL future in front of him. However, Wisconsin has one of the best front sevens in the country and they were able to shut down Jackson and the Northwestern rushing attack for most of the contest.

Now, let’s take a look at three takeaways from the Wisconsin win over Northwestern in Week 5.