Fresh off their 59-7 disposal of Indiana, the No. 6 Wisconsin football team hit the road for their first true road test against No. 16 Michigan State Saturday night.
Having beaten each of their first six opponents by at least 30 points, the Badgers and senior quarterback Russell Wilson are looking forward to a new challenge. Not only is Michigan State the lone Big Ten team to have beaten UW over the past two seasons, but the Spartans also come into Saturday having the conference’s top ranked defense.
“When you watch Michigan State, they have a lot of speed,” Wilson said. “That’s the reason why I came here, to play great games, to play in big time venues like Michigan State.”
On the defensive side of the ball, the Badgers are going to have to hold the Spartans in check on third down, a year after MSU finished 9-for-18 on third down and 2-for-3 on fourth down in a 34-24 win over the Badgers in the Big Ten conference opener.
“Michigan State offensively is a lot like us,” UW head coach Bret Bielema said. “It all starts with the quarterback.”
Spartan senior quarterback Kirk Cousins has been efficient almost all season, passing for 1173 yards in his first six contests, throwing eight touchdowns to just four picks for a 140.5 pass efficiency rating. Last year Cousins burned the Badgers for 269 yards and three touchdowns on 20-for-29.
Beyond the challenge of facing a far more talented roster than last week, Wisconsin will have to handle an environment at Spartan Stadium that will be, at the very least, a bit less friendly than the friendly confines of Camp Randall.
But while the hostility of a road night game is something many teams—even those with the talent level of this year’s Badgers—shy away from, Wisconsin is committed to taking the challenge head-on.
“It’s the moment that we’re in,” Bielema said. “We’ve got seven days to hone in on it here and I think our guys will really buy into it.”
Despite having blown through the season thus far, Bielema and crew know that their play has been anything but perfect. Even in the 52-point victory over Indiana on Saturday, there were plenty of mistakes the coaching staff will be sure to emphasize in practice this week leading up to the matchup with Michigan State.
“After watching the Indiana game, I thought there was a lot of things positive,” Bielema said. “[But] a lot of things we need to clean up.”
But one area in which the Badgers have played near perfect is on the line. The line has protected Wilson all season and will look to continue that trend in East Lansing.
The Spartans, however, have thrived upon putting pressure on opposing quarterbacks all season. Having already notched 21 sacks thus far this season, MSU is already chomping at the bit to get after Wilson, with defensive back Isaiah Lewis going so far as to say that “our lineman are getting after the quarterback. And they’re going to hurt him.”
“I like Michigan State’s approach,” Bielema said. “To me, when I was a defensive coordinator, the one thing you could do was you could mentally or physically challenge a quarterback and that’s exactly what they’re doing obviously on film and maybe even in the papers.”
While Saturday presents perhaps the biggest threat to the Badgers thus far unblemished season, it also offers Wisconsin an opportunity to silence the critics with a big road win. Oh, and there’s always that little thing called revenge.