Wisconsin football: 2022 Way-Too-Early-Top-25 rankings roundup

While the college football season just ended on Monday, for the Wisconsin Badgers it has been two weeks since they last played a game and, if my calculations are correct, there are still about 1,000 weeks until they open the 2022 season* at home against Bret Bielema and the Illinois Fighting Illini.

Basically, we’ve been starving for football content and now that the 2021 season is officially over...we can look ahead to 2022 with reckless abandon! As is tradition, many media outlets have put out a Way Too Early Top-25 rankings for next year. This is all just for fun and getting people talking because we don’t even know what every team’s roster will look like or who is starting at key positions.

However, that doesn’t mean we can’t be outraged by them! Let’s take a look at where certain pundits think the Badgers will start the season:

• Mark Schlabach, ESPN: No. 24; top-five of Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Texas A&M, Michigan
• Dennis Dodd, CBS Sports: No. 19; top-five of Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas A&M
• Brad Crawford, 247 Sports: unranked; top-five of Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Texas A&M, Notre Dame
• Yahoo! Sports: No. 21; top-five of Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Clemson, Texas A&M
• Sporting News: “just missed;” top-five of Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Clemson, Notre Dame
• Stewart Mandel, The Athletic ($): No. 19; Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Utah, Notre Dame
• Athlon Sports: No. 12; Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Clemson, Michigan
• Pat Forde, Sports Illustrated: No. 17; Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Clemson, Utah
• Brett McMurphy, Action Network: No. 6; Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Clemson

So, yeah. There doesn’t seem to be TOO much of a consensus on the Badgers for next season as they are as highly ranked as SIXTH (which, like, huh?) and are unranked in two of the polls. I will not ever do math, but it seems like No. 19 is about the spot where everyone can agree that “yeah, Wisconsin’ll probably be right around there.”

‘Bama, Georgia and Ohio State appear to be the early favorites to make the CFP, leaving one spot open for scrappy underdogs like ::squints:: Texas A&M, Clemson, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Michiga...ahhh, hell! Miss you already, Cincinnati! I guess Utah would be kinda cool? Whatever, there’s plenty of time to start feeling sad about the inevitability of two Bama/UGa matchups again next year. For now? Let’s be happy that soon we’ll have winter conditioning/spring practice rosters to look over.

*it should be noted that the Big Ten sent out an email on Tuesday saying that they would be announcing “a revised 2022 Big Ten football schedule” on Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. CT on Big Ten Network, so who knows if Illinois will still be first game of the season