Wisconsin Badgers: Early 2020 game-by-game projections, Part 4
By James Bowers
We’ll take a look at Wisconsin football’s final three opponents in 2020. This critical stretch is make or break for the Badgers’ title hopes.
Finally, we have reached part four of our projections for Wisconsin’s 2020 football campaign. At this time, it’s the opening week of May and the status of the 2020 college football season and society as we know it remains very much in the air.
Let’s imagine that miraculously everything goes as scheduled and November 2020 finds the Wisconsin Badgers 9-0 (though I have them 8-1) and in the catbird seat for a Big Ten West title and beyond.
Jack Coan has already well eclipsed the 2,000-yard passing mark after he successfully supplemented the targets Kendrick Pryor and Danny Davis with newcomers like Emmet Perry or Cormac Sampson. This will require some avoidance of the injury bug.
Complementing the offensive fireworks with some fine defensive play from the likes of Faion Hicks and Garrett Rand, the Badgers have bested the likes of Michigan and Minnesota. Visions of the College Football Playoff dance in Badger heads.
Wisconsin will now look at a final three-game stretch that includes Purdue, Nebraska and Iowa.
Iowa can be counted on to be strong, though they lose a ton to the NFL (notably first-round pick Tristan Wirfs and AJ Epenesa), they make up for a lost quarterback by returning virtually all of their other offensive starters and a talented recruiting class doesn’t hurt either.
Once-proud Nebraska will have loads of question marks as they head into Scott Frost’s third year at the helm of the program he once quarterbacked in the mid to late-1990s. The Huskers are absolutely not considered a national championship frontrunner and there is very serious doubt if they will ever return to their former glory.
Purdue is also far removed from the turn of the millennium glory days of Drew Brees and Joe Tiller. However, injuries kept the team from doing what it could have in 2019, and Jeff Brohm’s team has proven on several occasions it will not go away without a fight.
For Wisconsin, the four-letter word for the final three games is ‘trap’. Paul Chryst hopes his team can escape the final trilogy without a shocking loss to a lesser team.
We’ll take a look at the last set of games for the 2020 Wisconsin squad.