Wisconsin Football: 3 reasons the Badgers will upset Ohio State in Week 9
By Sam Land
1. Wisconsin is the more motivated team
Ironically, the most important factor working in Wisconsin’s favor against Ohio State is the humiliating defeat it suffered against Illinois.
The Badgers got their pants pulled down against the Fighting Illini, and it became a national spectacle as a result of a combination of the dramatic finish and the fact that it was the most shocking upset in a Big Ten game in the last 40 seasons based on the odds.
I can’t remember a more embarrassing moment in the recent history of this Wisconsin program, and that’s including last season’s devastating loss to BYU at Camp Randall when the Badgers were College Football Playoff hopefuls, coughing up Paul Bunyan’s Axe to Minnesota for the first time in years a few months later, and the 59-0 beat down at the hands of Ohio State in the 2014 Big Ten Championship Game.
With that being said, I cannot imagine a scenario in which Bucky does not come to play in Columbus with a fiery resolve to show the nation that the team’s success prior to the embarrassing Illinois loss was not just a fluke and that this is indeed a top ten squad.
Additionally, though a Playoff berth is almost certainly out of the cards at this point for the Badgers, they still have worthy goals in front of them to strive for, such as winning the Big Ten West to make it to Indianapolis and then winning the conference title. However, a second loss in conference play to Ohio State on Saturday will make achieving those accolades significantly more difficult, given how little margin for error there currently is in what has suddenly become a very tight race in the West.
Ranking college football's top 50 fanbases. dark. Next
Clearly, Wisconsin has a lot riding on finding a way to escape the Shoe with a win this weekend, and while I don’t doubt the Buckeyes are going to come to play as well as they look to continue on the path to the Playoff, I’m expecting the Badgers to put forward a special effort in this one as they look to silence all of the doubters that have sprung up across the nation after the Illinois loss and ensure that they can still achieve what they set out to do at the start of the season.