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Thursday, March 28

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College Teams Thu Sep 29 2011

Big Ten Football: Badgers & Huskers Square Off

Thumbnail image for big ten divisions vertical.JPGOnly in journalism are you taught to put the climax of a story first. It's impossible to sustain interest that way. Unless you're a journalist whose primary goal is fitting as much news into as tight of a space as possible, you're ensuring that the majority of your audience remains uninterested for the bulk of your work.

But that's exactly what the Big Ten has done in scheduling the contest between Wisconsin and Nebraska in the very first week of conference play.

With no disrespect to the other storied programs of the Big Ten, the Badgers and Cornhuskers enter conference play with more hype than anyone else. And it's easy to see why.

Sure, Ohio State will get their suspended players back and eventually play good football again; Michigan State probably won't turn the ball over as many times as they did against Notre Dame again all season; and Michigan hasn't run out of steam quite yet.

But Wisconsin and Nebraska are the only two teams ranked near the top 10, and conventional wisdom says this weekend's matchup is just a precursor for when the two meet up later this year in Indianapolis to decide who gets the Big Ten's automatic bid for the BCS. And if we're to lend the other conference contenders the benefit of the doubt for future improvement, Wisconsin and Nebraska deserve the same.

After all, the Badgers usually struggle early. Through three FCS games last year, the Badgers had only outscored their opponents by 34 points. This year, they downed their three FCS foes 135-24.

The difference has been the passing game. While the Badgers have always had to wait a few weeks for the offensive line to ratchet up to its NFL-ready level, they've never been able to get production from a passing attack this prolific. Senior transfer Russell Wilson has lit it up for 11 touchdowns and only one interception, for a passer rating of 218.4. Not to mention he's playing alongside a defense that's somehow made the loss of All-Everything J.J. Watt seem negligible.

For the most part, ditto for Nebraska.

The offense is getting its footing behind sophomore quarterback Taylor Martinez, who has done a better job of picking his spots so far this season. The Huskers spread the defense wide with option runs and deep with a lethal downfield passing game. And with Roy Helu Jr. gone to the NFL, Rex Burkhead hasn't missed a beat in the backfield.

To this point Nebraska's most impressive feature has probably been their defense. They're swarming to every football, and Jared Crick looks nearly as terrifying as Ndamukong Suh.

We've got a lot of Big Ten football ahead of us, but very little of it will be as exciting as this. Saturday night in Madison, you'll swear it's already late November.

 
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