Ohio State Buckeyes opponent breakdowns: Wisconsin

Opponents: Florida Atlantic | Cincinnati | Indiana | Miami (OH) | Nebraska | Michigan State | Northwestern

The college football season is still weeks away but anticipation is starting to build as the calendar turns from June to July and we are closing in on less than two months from the first kickoffs of the season.

Much has been made of Ohio State’s schedule this season with its lack of a Power Five non-conference opponent on it, but don’t let anyone convince you that this schedule does not pose more than its fair share of problems for a team that will be breaking in not only a new quarterback but essentially a new head coach as Ryan Day takes over for Urban Meyer as the Buckeyes look to defend their back-to-back Big Ten championships.

The lack of a P5 non-conference opponent may overshadow the fact that Ohio State has about as difficult of a crossover schedule as a Big Ten East team can have with games against Nebraska, Wisconsin and Northwestern and the schedule maker did this team no favors with a final two of Penn State and Michigan to wrap up the regular season in November.

The Buckeyes and Badgers have played some classic games during the last 20 years and even though Ohio State holds a commanding 59-18-5 record in the series, it does not mean that the Bucks have had a bunch of 59-0 wins in this series (two to be exact, everyone remembers the 2014 B1G Champ Game but Ohio State won by the same score in 1979 as well).

Wisconsin has not had Ohio State on its regular season schedule much over the past couple of seasons with two of the last three meetings taking place in the Big Ten Championship Game in Indy. Ohio State holds a 2-0 edge in Indy and has won the last six in the series, daring back to a 31-18 win in Madison (Wis.) when the No. 1 Buckeyes ran into a bit of a buzzsaw when the Badgers returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown and kept the Buckeyes at arm’s length the rest of the evening.

Last Year: 8-5, 5-4 Big Ten West

This was not the year that anyone around the Wisconsin program was expecting. When you have a running back who is capable of rushing for 2,000-yards in a season and have a recent history of having some pretty stout defenses, a five-loss season is not what anyone is preparing for. Unfortunately for Bucky Badger, that is exactly what happened.

Wisconsin has historically scheduled terrible non-conference schedules and this year looked to be pretty easy outside of BYU, a team that can have a good year here-and-there, but that game was set for Madison and should not have been an issue.

Well, it was.

The Badgers would get on the board first and then would never lead again and the Cougars would end up taking the lead for good in the 4th quarter with a 45-yard field goal. A pattern started to develop in this game, a pattern that the Badgers were not going to be a very good passing team.

Wisconsin would lose it’s No. 6 national ranking and fall all the way down to No. 18 but would bounce back in its next two games, wins at Iowa and home against Nebraska and would get back to the No. 15 ranking before facing No. 12 Michigan.

Once again, the passing game was not there as Alex Hornibrook would go 7-20 with two interceptions and throw for just 100 yards. Jonathan Taylor would still get his 100-yards but he was really the only thing going on the offensive side of the ball that afternoon and the Badgers would fall again.

In losses to Northwestern and Penn State, the Badgers would turn to Jack Coan as Hornibrook nursed an injury that kept him out of the mix, the passing results were not much better in either of these two games as the Badgers dropped them and fell out of the Big Ten West race.

Wisconsin could not string back-to-back wins together after its two-game streak of beating Iowa and Nebraska and it was just overall a down year for a program that is expected to compete for divisional and league titles.

The Badgers would make it to a bowl game and crush the Miami Hurricanes in the Pinstripe Bowl, 35-3. But even in that game, there was little to no passing as Jack Coan only attempted 11 passes and threw for 73 yards. The Badgers would march on to victory behind 333 yards on the ground, led by Taylor’s 205 yards on 27 carries.