Can the Badgers pull off the upset in Week 5?
The Wisconsin Badgers will look to have a bounceback week coming off their bye. Week 4 saw Luke Fickell’s squad lose a tough one to Alabama, 42-10. Unfortunately for Wisconsin, it will face another top-25 opponent in No. 13 USC.
Playing their first road game of the season in California, there isn’t much expectation for the Badgers to win. Wisconsin’s first two games of the season saw them play down to its competition, and what followed was a beatdown against a real team. There hasn’t been much to like thus far.
Of course, as they say in college sports especially, anything can happen. Wisconsin can certainly pull off the upset, but it will come down to three important keys.
Pressure Miller Moss
Moss is averaging 39 pass attempts per game and threw an absurd 51 passes in USC’s Week 4 loss against Michigan. Although he threw a lot, Moss only completed 28 of those attempts, and the defense was able to apply pressure to the Trojans’ offensive line.
The Wolverines had four sacks and an interception, and while the secondary held up, Michigan won largely due to the pressure from their front seven.
Wisconsin’s defense has struggled immensely, but if it can force Moss to throw in little time, with a solid secondary doing its job, they can do damage against USC’s most important weapon.
Believe it or not, establish the run game.
This is the most Wisconsin-esque key, and it’s great that this has a chance of playing in the Badgers’ favor. For years the program has been run-heavy, and against a Trojans defense that let up 291 yards and three touchdowns to Michigan’s run game, the Badgers can continue this trend on Saturday.
Although Michigan has elite backs in Donovan Edwards and Kalel Mullings, quarterback Alex Orji threw the ball 12 times. It had been established early that the Wolverines would be handing the ball off for the majority of the time, and even when they did it on 78.9% of snaps, USC still couldn’t stop them.
Chez Mellusi and Wisconsin’s backfield, along with the offensive line, have somewhat of an advantage in that aspect.
Let Braedyn Locke Get Comfortable
While Michigan barely threw the ball against USC, Orji was still able to complete 7 of 12 passes. The Trojans’ pass defense has looked all over the place through three games. They gave up 304 yards and two touchdowns against LSU, but 103 yards and no touchdowns against Utah State.
The point is that USC’s secondary isn’t necessarily dominant, and Wisconsin could take advantage of that.
Braedyn Locke’s stats throughout his college career sum him up perfectly. He has a career completion percentage of 50 percent and a rating of 102.6. He isn’t Tyler Van Dyke, however, a few things stand out that could help his case to be efficient and spark something special:
Locke was trusted to throw the ball at least 30 times in each of his four starts last season and threw at least 40 times in two games. Fickell limited Locke to 26 throws against Alabama, but then again, he wasn’t expected to start. Expect Locke to get a lot more opportunities.
The second thing to note is that although he has a career completion percentage of 50%, Locke has only thrown one interception in four starts (five legitimate games when you include Alabama).
Locke has some trouble getting the ball out and on target, but he doesn’t make many poor decisions. Of course, making a good throw is the most important, but knowing where to throw is half the battle. Locke can make these decisions, especially with preparation.
The expectation is not for Locke to put up 300 yards and three touchdowns through the air, however, while that would be nice, he just needs to be efficient and it becomes a whole other ball game for Wisconsin.
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