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Phil Steele puts out the best college football preview magazine every year. It’s not even a contest. In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of his first publication we at Bucky’s 5th Quarter are going to find four interesting facts about each team on Wisconsin’s schedule, including the Badgers, and break them down for you.
Phil, we love your magazine and we also love your mustache.
NUMBER 1: +1
This is Wisconsin’s turnover margin from last year. The year before they were +5 and the year before that they were +12. Turnovers, as you hopefully know, are mostly about luck and I think it is high time that the Badgers luck turns around and gets them back between +5 and +12 in turnover margin.
NUMBER 2: 5
The Badgers face five (!!!!!) teams coming off of bye weeks this year. That seemed a little outrageous to me so I checked how many teams coming off bye weeks the other B1G squads played and no one had as many! COLLUSION! OUTRAGE! WHAT THE HELL!?!?! In fact, three of their last four games are against teams coming off of their bye week. That is rough with a capital R.
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NUMBER 3: 13
Wisconsin has beaten Purdue 13 times in a row. The Boilermakers are one of many teams in the B1G West that are trending upwards and Wisconsin lost their long winning streak against Minnesota last year. Is another long streak going to come to an end this year? The game is at Camp Randall, so the odds aren’t great for a Purdue win, but I believe we all thought that last year about the Gophers sooooooo.
NUMBER 4: 19
Jim Leonhard’s defense sacked the opposing quarterback 19 times last year. Their fewest amount of sacks since they recorded 26 in 2013. Everyone has heard about how the defensive line was ravaged by injuries, and that played a part in the low sack totals, but the edge rushing linebackers will have to be better this year too. Andrew Van Ginkel is gone so it’ll be up to Zack Baun, Christian Bell and other untested OLB to get some pressure on the quarterback.
Next up: USF