The B1G Roast: Darkness imprisoning me. All that I see. Absolute horror.

The fact that I was able to watch almost all of the B1G Title game uninterrupted by children was a minor miracle. Both of my kids have been sick on and off for, what feels like, decades and they have the hacky coughs you’d expect someone with emphysema to have. The coughs are so bad that one will cough and wake the other one up in a different room.

It’s terrible.

However, for one glorious evening they barely coughed and both went to sleep with relatively little fuss and then holy shit Jonathan Taylor just burst right through the middle of Ohio State’s defense and scored a touchdown! Badgers are up 7-0! Ope, the baby is awake and needs to be rocked back to sleep.

@B5QPhotos; Matt Fleming

Finally got her back down and now the olde...WAS THAT JACK COAN RUNNING INTO THE ENDZONE FROM FURTHER AWAY THAN ONE YARD?!?! YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! Ok, I think everyone is asleep for good so of course the Buckeyes would score right before halftime to take all the momentum away.

Who gets the ball first? Shit, Ohio State. Welp, this game is ov...OH SNAP TAYLOR GOT LOOSE! LET’S KEEP GOING CHRYST! AHHHHHH! QUINTEZ!!!!!! WHAT A CATCH!!!!

TWO RUSHING TOUCHDOWNS FOR JACK COAN IN THE FIRST HALF WE ARE THE BEST TEAM IN ANY SPORT EVER!!!!

After that, well dear reader, things on the football field returned to normal. The kids stayed asleep though so I had that going for me...which was nice.

Ohio State Buckeyes

S&P+ rank: Overall 1st, Offense 4th, Defense 1st, Special Teams 18th

Last week’s results: (W) vs. No. 8 Wisconsin, 34-21

Biggest strength: Halftime adjustments.

J.K. Dobbins was really good again. Ohio State’s receivers were really good again. They’re just a really good team that I hope loses to Clemson by a dozen touchdowns.

Biggest weakness: Couldn’t get Chase Young free once Wisconsin stopped trying to block him with a traffic cone! (He still had six tackles, 1.5 for loss, two QB hurries and two passes knocked down...he’s amazing.)

This week’s opponent: Each other, at the Heisman Trophy ceremony.

Wisconsin Badgers

S&P+ rank: Overall 12th, Offense 10th, Defense 15th, Special Teams 87th

Last week’s results: (L) vs. No. 1 Ohio State, 34-21

Biggest strength: Allow me to start this section with the rare piece of actual football analysis in the Roast: Keeanu Benton is going to be a very good player for the Badgers for the next two to three seasons.

What a gem the Badgers found in the 2019 class!

That first half of football was almost perfect. I loved everything about it. Paul Chryst coached aggressively. The players played aggressively. They punched Ohio State right in the mouth and then KEPT PUNCHING.

It was very unlike a lot of the earlier games in the season where the Badgers seemed passive and, honestly, bored. This team was locked in from the jump and was not in the mood to take any prisoners, instead planning on salting the earth after killing everything in Indy.

I don’t know what happened at halftime and I’ll probably never know, but for one glorious half...everything was clicking and it was amazing.

Biggest weakness: This seems...bad.

We all know the narrative here. Ohio State is a recruiting behemoth and Wisconsin is mostly an afterthought, especially for a team that wins as many games as it does. A Buckeye gets hurt? Oh no, here comes another blue-chip player to take his place. A Badger, sayyyyy Chris Orr for example, gets hurt and true freshman Leo Chenal (who is quite good, but he would never sniff the field in Columbus as a true freshman) takes his place.

It just took Ohio State a full half to realize the Badgers weren’t going to roll over because of how badly they were beaten earlier in the season. Once the third quarter started Ohio State scored on each of its offensive possessions except their last one, and that was inconsequential.

The Badgers possessions in the second half went: dropped snap on a punt, missed field goal, punt, punt, downs, end of game. You ain’t beating Northwestern playing like that, let alone the best team in the country.

Wisconsin played the best they possibly could for one half of the B1G Title game and while it was awesome to watch it’s also a little disheartening. I know people will say “see, they were so close...they’re right on the edge of beating these teams.” But I kind of see it the other way. The Badgers had to play nearly perfect football for an entire half (and were only up 14) and then slipped up a little in the second half and lost by 13.

Once Wisconsin can afford to make one mistake, not even the actual handful that they did, just one, and hang with Ohio State...then I’ll think they’re close. That won’t happen until recruiting improves though.

This week’s opponent: None, sadly. We’ll have a B1G Roast: Bowl Edition before the B1G kicks off their bowl season.