Michigan 38, Wisconsin 13.

[Jeff Buchanan]

At the start of the season, I don't think there was anyone that thought this game was any more than a toss-up with a shade towards Wisky. I certainly thought that. My gut sense is that Wisconsin isn't as good as we might have thought they were but that's based entirely on feelings ball for me. I'll take a closer look during the week.

I'm one of those gray hairs that don't like night games. I'm a Bo devotee when it comes to the notion that CFB games should be played at noon on Saturdays. But that isn't reality any more in the era of high-dollar sports entertainment. This game is going to deliver for advertisers trying to get their products in front of as many eyeballs as possible and we, the fans, are going to have to put up with that and the intolerably long and disruptive commercial breaks attendant to that.

Notable that the first half of the Maryland game, because of weather related agreements with ABC to eliminate some of their commercial breaks took just over 90m to run. That's up to 40 minutes shorter than typical M halves this season.

[whodean]

Get off my turf!!!

[Detroit Dan]

Yeah, the last game was much more enjoyable because of fewer commercial breaks.

Wisconsin will be a good test of our defense. I hope we have some healthy D linemen.

[Tslisher]

I watched most of the Wisconsin/Nebraska game last night. The first half was pretty competitive, but Wisconsin started wearing them out in the second half. The total yards, first downs etc are pretty even in this game. Nebraska was able to move the ball on them, but had a hard time in the red zone. Wisconsin is good, but not overwhelming. I'd give us a pretty decent chance. Anyone know who is favored? Probably M, just mostly due to home field advantage.

[Hannibal]

Loss

[stevemacie]

Line is UM by 7.5

[Jeff Buchanan]

Some data points:

Michigan's updated S&P+ rankings through six games.

Overall: 5 Offense: 25 Defense: 2 Special teams: 8 (M was #3 until after the KO return v. Maryland)

Wisconsin:

Overall: 13 Offense: 8 Defense: 55 Special teams: 23

ESPN's FPI, says that Michigan has a 73.9% chance of victory against Wisconsin.

It also ranks M #6 (20.9) and Wisconsin #15 (15.2) in it's Power rankings. This are commonly used as a starting point for determining the spread (5.7)

The more important, to me, Efficiency rankings indicate how each unit contributes to wins and by extension, how well rounded a football team is. They look like this (Offense, Defense, ST, Overall):

34

Wisconsin, Big Ten

69.0

57.1

64.7

69.6

6

Michigan, Big Ten

74.5

83.3

59.7

85.2

Polls:

Michigan moved up in the rankings to #12. Wisconsin is at #15.

Versus a common opponent:

Jonathan Taylor ran for 221 yards v. Nebraska (Wisky had 351 yards rush total). Hornibrook: 13/24/1/0, long 26. Higdon ran for 135 yards, W with total 285. Patterson 15/22/1, long 22.

Nebraska had 132 yards of offense against M. Against WI, Nebraska had 518 yards of offense.

While M has some injuries on defense, Wisconsin does too and when I look at match-ups this week I'll try to pin that down.

[WM Wolverine]

Every metric I look at has Wisconsin as a top 10 defense, you sure you didn't add an extra 5 to their defense power ranking?

They haven't allowed more than 24 points in a game, despite a special teams that gives their defense short fields. Their performance against Nebraska is a bit of an outlier, but still hints that their defense could be exposed by a better offense.

I like both defenses in this one, take the under... like Ms offense a bit more vs the Wisconsin defense. Ms defense needs to get pressure to make the Badgers one dimensional. Having Gary back will be big.

[Jeff Buchanan]

What metrics are you looking at? I know there can be differences but here are the rankings I used in the OP:

S&P+

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa

FEI

http://www.espn.com/college-football/statistics/teamratings/_/tab/efficiency

[Jeff Buchanan]

On the injury to Dwumfor ......

I actually think Mone may be a better fit v. Wisconsin's offense than Dwumfor. Dwumfor, who has quicker feet than Mone, was getting really good against M's opponents that used spread concepts that optimize runs where the OL lines up with some pretty big gaps on standard downs. I don't think Wisconsin does that much if at all. I think they are predominantly a gap blocking offense that runs power concepts. I'd have to look at some video to confirm that. Mone is an immovable object in gap blocking schemes.

[Hannibal]

We need Gary and Solomon back ASAP.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Found some useful video, although this doesn't reveal much about what Chryst might be doing this season from the sets you see in this video. The first 14 minutes of the video covers Chryst's offensive concept pretty well - he's pro-style schematically, not hybrid much although he's also known to adapt so, I think he probably has some packages that you'd characterize as hybrid, spready run or pass concepts. They're not on this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5iFW3Jlslc

Fundamentally, he's much like Harbaugh and you'll find these two coaches among the group of CFB coaches that are generally perceived as being pro-style, 21 Personnel guys. Wisconsin uses TEs extensively in their run and pass packages. Troy Fumagali is now a Bronco in the NFL. TE Zander Neuville, his replacement is out for the season. RS/Fr Jake Ferguson replaced him and had 4 catches for 47y and a TD, long of 15y v. Neb.

Against Nebraska, who does not defend the run well, Wisconsin just relied on Taylor to jump out to a big lead and played rope-a-dope the rest of the way. I wouldn't put too much stock in A-Mart's passing stats (24/42/384, 2 TDs, long 75) as once the Badgers got a big lead I suspect they played a good deal of zone, 2hi the rest of the way and Wisky has a bunch of injuries in the secondary forcing them to play a lot of freshman back there. Hornibrook didn't have to do much v. Neb but when he has had to in the past, he's been very good.

This is the injury list from before the Nebraska game:

QUESTIONABLE

TE Luke Benzschawel (right leg)
CB Faion Hicks (right arm)
ILB Mike Maskalunas (right leg)
RB Bradrick Shaw (left leg)
OLB Andrew Van Ginkel (right leg)

OUT

ILB Griffin Grady (right leg)

OUT FOR SEASON

OLB Mason Platter (right leg)
DE Garrett Rand (right leg)
OL Blake Smithback (right leg)

M appears to match up well v. the Badger run game despite what is the likely loss of Dwumfor. He'll be replaced by Mone and probably Kemp depending on his status. Gary will play. How effective he is remains to be seen. Obviously, M has to stop Taylor. That looks like a good bet it will happen. I'm counting on Brown to come up with schemes that make it hard for Hornibrook to work his passing game but I suspect this will be a big part of Paul Chryst's game plan. Which team wins this dual is going to win the game so, Hornibrook v. Patterson. I like the odds.

Here's an important data point. This is Wisconsin's sack percentages (2018/Last 3/Last 1/Home/Away/2017):

113

Wisconsin

3.36%

3.23%

4.35%

3.97%

0.00%

9.61%

That bodes well for Patterson and given injuries to Wisconsin's secondary, it may not matter that Wisconsin can stop M's run game and I don't think they will. Given what Harbaugh appears to be doing with scheme in the running game, I would anticipate the run game will have some success v. Wisconsin somewhere between v. NW and Maryland. Closer to Maryland as JH pulled some new tools out of his tool box that were effective in that game. That's going to give a balanced attack for M that I don't think Wisconsin is going to develop v. Brown's pressure schemes. Big plays? M is going to give one or two up but the overall feel of the game will favor M.

M's ST, despite giving up the KO return, is better than Wisconsin's and by a lot. Their punter (43 yard avg.) puts the Badger defense in a lot of short fields. Their FG kicker is solid. If it comes to a battle between Nordin and Gaglianone, that's probably a draw.

These two coaches and coaching staffs are very much alike. That can work both ways. I think M's coaching staff overall tends to be a bit more innovative on both sides of the ball. Both teams won't be coming in off bye weeks with opportunities to install new stuff, so, what we've seen from Chryst is more likely to be what we'll see from Wisconsin on Saturday. Besides that is the hallmark of Chryt's style. He does what the offense or defense needs to do very well out of a reasonably small set of basic plays with enough variation in scheme to keep it interesting.

Without a decided go to TE, Wisconsin's offense isn't as balanced as it has been in the past. The defense with plenty of injuries in the secondary and an average front 7 is not as good as in the past either. Playing on the road in the BIG is hard and I think M is up for this game more than Bucky will be.

Michigan 31, Wisconsin 24.

[Niffla]

I think we're going to kick their ass, honestly.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Here's Wisconsin's Monday after (week 6) Injury report. They are missing a lot of key players; a lot more than M is at this point of the season. I think they do a Thursday update too. I'll post it if I remember to:

https://sconniesportstalk.com/wisconsin-football-injury-report/

[Jeff Buchanan]

???? The link above doesn't work. Here's an injury update that came out yesterday:

https://www.buckys5thquarter.com/2018/10/8/17951016/wisconsin-football-andrew-van-ginkel-injury-isaiahh-loudermilk-michigan-wolverines