Tale of the Tape: Wisconsin

There is not much new that can be said about Ohio State's pass defense that has not been said already. They are very, very good. Malik Hooker likely should have seen his defensive touchdown count last week against Indiana after a questionable low block call was assessed to Damon Arnette, but even with the points coming off the board, it was a instinctual play by Hooker to jump the route and one heck of an athletic play taking it all of the way back. The Buckeyes are sitting on 10 interceptions and getting ready to face a team that throws a lot of picks in the passing game. The big question is will the Buckeyes look to cheat in the run game and put Gareon Conley, Marshon Lattimore and Denzel Ward on islands and try and replicate much of what Michigan did against the Badgers two weeks ago in holding the passing game to 88 yards of offense on 9-25 passing with three interceptions?

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Redshirt freshman quarterback Alex Hornibrook still has a lot of work to do as a passer. He did step in for struggling senior quarterback Bart Houston and has led the Badgers to a top-10 ranking in the AP poll, but Hornibrook's passing numbers are quite pedestrian with four touchdown passes through four games against five interceptions during the same span and 1 17 yards of passing per game. The two quarterbacks combined have thrown for 993 yards in five games with six touchdowns to the good and seven interceptions to the bad. Moving off of the quarterbacks and looking at the targets, Columbus (Ohio) native Rob Wheelwright along with Jazz Peavy and Troy Fumagalli are the main targets with 51 of the 82 total receptions for the Badgers. Only Peavy has hauled in a touchdown at this point (he has two) but when you have a grand total of six receiving touchdowns, there are not many to go around. The Buckeyes have had nightmares in the past dealing with tight ends from the Badgers and Fumagalli has good size at 6-foot-5, 234 pounds and the Buckeyes cannot run the risk of losing track of him. Ultimately, the Badgers are coming off of a bye week and have had two weeks to plan and scheme for the Buckeyes. While it may be a stretch to expect a team to reinvent itself, either offensively or defensively, in that span of time, you can be sure that head coach Paul Chryst is not going to walk into this game without a couple of ideas on how to attack the Ohio State offense. We are just not sure there are enough weapons in the pass game for it to be more than a supporting role to a heavy dose of the run game.

Advantage: Ohio State