2011 Big Ten Championship
Week 14, Wisconsin at MSU
-
Big Ten Fearless Predictions &
Conference Page
- FREE EXPERT COLLEGE FOOTBALL SELECTIONS
- Get Tickets For This Game
|
National
Rankings
|
|
W |
|
S |
|
12th |
Total Offense |
64th |
|
7th |
Total Defense |
3rd |
|
4th |
Scoring Offense |
43rd |
|
4th |
Scoring Defense |
6th |
|
10th |
Rushing Offense |
78th |
|
44th |
Run Defense |
11th |
|
63rd |
Passing Offense |
46th |
|
3rd |
Passing Defense |
8th |
|
5th |
Turnover Margin |
17th |
|
Position Rankings
relative to each
other
5 Highest - 1 Lowest |
|
W |
|
S |
|
5 |
Quarterbacks |
5 |
|
5 |
RBs |
4 |
|
4 |
Receivers |
4 |
|
5 |
O
Line |
4 |
|
3.5 |
D
Line |
4 |
|
4.5 |
Linebackers |
4 |
|
3.5 |
Secondary |
5 |
|
3 |
Spec
Teams |
4.5 |
|
4.5 |
Coaching |
4.5 |
|
Dec. 3 Wisconsin 42 … Michigan State 39
CFN Analysis: The Badger defense had better come up with some more speed in the back seven in a big hurry or the Rose Bowl against Oregon isn’t going to be pretty. … Russell Wilson will be remembered for his two big throws – one for a touchdown and one to set up the final score – but he was at his best in the fourth quarter on third downs. … Montee Ball ran 27 times for 137 yards and three scores, caught three passes for seven yards and a score, and hit Wilson on a 32-yard play. It was Heisman-worthy. … The Badger O line didn’t necessarily wear down the MSU D line, but it got the job done. It’s going to have to dominate the Duck defensive front.
CFN Analysis: How do you go for the punt block? Mark Dantonio explained his decision after the fact, but MSU could’ve had the ball in a good position to go for the game-tying field goal. … Kirk Cousins was too hot to not give one final shot. He finished completing 22-of-30 passes for 281 yards and three scores and a pick. … Le’Veon Bell needed to be used more. He ran for an effective 106 yards and a score on 18 carries. … Jerel Worthy was a monster. He only made two tackles, but he collapsed the pocket time and again and blocked a two-point conversion attempt.
(AP) INDIANAPOLIS -- Wisconsin got the late touchdown it needed, the late stop it needed and the big break it needed Saturday night.
Otherwise, the inaugural Big Ten championship game may have ended the same way the Badgers' first round with Michigan State did.
Montee Ball scored four touchdowns, the last coming on a 7-yard run with 3:45 left, and the Badgers used a running into the kicker penalty to kill the clock as No. 15 Wisconsin hung on to beat Michigan State (No. 13 ESPN/USA Today, No. 11 AP) 42-39 and earn a second straight Rose Bowl bid.
"It makes it twice as nice," Badgers coach Bret Bielema told the crowd after hoisting the trophy. "They came out today, they weren't going to be denied, and to do it here, first time ever -- Big Ten champs, twice!"
Yes, the Badgers (11-2) were ready to party when streamers started covering the field. Some players walked into the postgame news conference carrying roses. Quarterback Russell Wilson, the game's MVP, tucked the rose behind his ear.
Next up for Wisconsin is Pac-12 champion Oregon, which beat UCLA in its conference title game Friday night.
But the Badgers almost didn't make it.
After losing on a deflected Hail Mary pass in October in East Lansing, the Spartans (10-3) looked as if they might pull off another miracle comeback Saturday night when they forced what appeared to be a three-and-out with less than two minutes to go.
Coach Mark Dantonio called for a punt block, but instead of getting the ball or taking advantage of Keshawn Martin's return inside the Wisconsin 10-yard line, Isaiah Lewis hit punter Brad Nortman. The 5-yard penalty gave Wisconsin the ball with Michigan State out of timeouts.
Game over.
"I don't know if he hit him," Dantonio said. "You probably have seen all the replays, but he threw the flag. I thought he flopped a little bit."
It's the second straight year, Michigan State and Wisconsin have been in the Rose Bowl hunt at season's end.
The Badgers got the invite last year based on a tiebreaker. This year, they took the undisputed title thanks primarily to their two offensive leaders -- Ball and Wilson.
Ball was his usually spectacular self early and efficient late. He ran for more than 100 yards and scored on two 6-yard TD runs in the first quarter. He scored two more times in the final 13½ minutes -- once on a 5-yard shovel pass and the other a 7-yard TD run that gave Wisconsin a 40-39 lead. A conversion pass from Wilson to Jacob Pedersen made it 42-39 with 3:45 left.
Ball finished with 27 carries for 137 yards and three scores, and his four TDs put him within one of breaking Barry Sanders' FBS mark (39) as he tried to impress the Heisman voters.
Wilson was nearly as good. He was 17 of 24 for 187 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions and broke the NCAA record by throwing a TD pass in his 37th consecutive game. Graham Harrell of Texas Tech held the previous mark (36).
"This is one of the reasons I came here," Wilson said of the Rose Bowl ticket.
The loss not only extended Michigan State's Rose Bowl drought -- it hasn't gone since 1988 -- and ruined Dantonio's pregame prediction. In an interview taped Friday, Dantonio told a local radio station that the Spartans would win the game and go to the Rose Bowl.
He and the Spartans tried everything to make that happen.
The Spartans ran a fourth-down pass play, called a fake extra point and even got an impromptu lateral for a score -- and that was just in the first half. Kirk Cousins made most of it work. Only one of his 17 first-half passes hit the ground in the first half, and he wound up 22 of 30 for 281 yards, three touchdowns and one interception.
But it was Cousins' ability to fool the normally stout Badgers' defense that nearly won the game.
On fourth-and-1 in the second quarter, he got Wisconsin to bite on a fake pitch and hooked up with a wide open B.J. Cunningham for a 30-yard TD pass to cut the deficit to 21-14.
On its next possession, Michigan State receiver Keith Nichol, who wrestled the Hail Mary pass across the goal line to beat Wisconsin in October, beat the Badgers again. This time, he caught a short pass from Cousins and just before stepping out of bounds lateraled to Cunningham, who ran the final 4 yards for a TD. Michigan State then called for a fake extra point that Brad Sontag ran in to make it 22-21.
"We felt we were having our way offensively the whole game," Cousins said. "We never felt like it was won. But we felt like we had our way offensively."
Even after playing more conventional football for most of the next two quarters and taking a 36-34 lead, the Spartans lined up two different players in the Wildcat formation, ran a reverse and drove for a 25-yard field goal to make it 39-34 with 8:31 left in the game.
But just like the first meeting, the Badgers answered.
Wilson led Wisconsin on an eight-play, 64-yard scoring march, converting a fourth-and-6 when Wilson scrambled, threw back across the field and Jeff Duckworth made a spectacular adjustment to haul in a 36-yard pass. On the next play, Ball burst up the middle for the 7-yard TD to give the Badgers the lead.
This time, the Wisconsin defense stiffened and after a replay review overturned a third-down play that would have gone for a first down, the Spartans punted for only the third time in the game.
They never got another chance.
"It's tough," Cousins said. "We came close two years in a row. We don't get to go, it's tough."
Michigan State's Martin had a career-high nine receptions for 115 yards, the second 100-yard game of his career.
Wisconsin (10-2) at Michigan State (10-2) Dec. 3, 8:17, Fox
Rematches stink.
The reason why college football is so great is because the regular season matters, and rematches always have an unsatisfying feel. However, if there was ever a case for two teams to play again, it’s Wisconsin and Michigan State in the inaugural Big Ten championship.
Wisconsin lost on the road on a Hail Mary that officials ruled wasn’t a touchdown, but was changed by the replay official despite the lack of overwhelming evidence at the time. After breaking down the film later, there was finally a definitive shot that showed that Spartan receiver Keith Nichol barely scored – all’s well that ends well – and now Wisconsin has its chance to make amends.
Had the Badgers not gagged late against Ohio State on a breakdown in the secondary, a case could’ve been made that they might deserve a shot at the national title if they could come up with a dominant performance in a rematch against the Spartans. Instead, they’re playing to go to their second straight Rose Bowl and they’re playing to establish the program as a superpower under head coach Bret Bielema.
Meanwhile, Michigan State has a theoretical beef that it’s already the Big Ten champion. If this was last year, the Spartans would already be packing for Pasadena, but now they have to deal with the rematch and they have to prove all over again that they’re better than the Badgers.
Wisconsin is the favorite, and the prevailing thinking is that it’s the best team in the conference, but Michigan State can’t be overlooked in any way and comes into Indianapolis every bit as hot. While the win over Minnesota wasn’t exactly dominant, the Spartans were able to easily get past Iowa on the road, blew away Indiana, and with nothing to play for, stomped on Northwestern in Evanston to finish the regular season on a four game winning streak.
The defense is playing at a high level, ranked third in the nation in yards allowed with a defensive front that’s as good as any in America. The second and pass defensive have been terrific, Le’Veon Bell and the running game are pounding away, and Kirk Cousins is a record-setting veteran quarterback who has seen it all and isn’t going to be fazed by the big stage.
A win would mean the first big bowl appearance for the Spartans since the BCS was created, and it would send them to the Rose Bowl for the first time since the 1987 season – well before any of the current players were born. It would also be the crowning achievement of the Mark Dantonio era and would launch him and the program into a whole other level.
Michigan State has been among the very good and has been a regular lately on the New Year’s Day bowl circuit, but considering the program went to one bowl – the Silicon Valley Bowl – from 2002 to 2006, and with the disaster against Alabama in last year’s Capital One Bowl still fresh, a win a third win in four tries against the Badgers would be special.
So welcome to a new era in Big Ten football. Can the game be close to as good as the James Brown Texas shocker over Nebraska in the inaugural Big 12 championship game in 1996? Can it be as interesting as Florida State’s win over Virginia Tech in the inaugural ACC championship game in 2005? Can it be the classic like Antonio Langham’s Alabama win over Florida in the first SEC championship game in 1992?
Hopefully it can simply be as entertaining as October 22nd game in East Lansing.
Why Wisconsin Might Win: If the offensive line plays like it did against Penn State, this will be over in the first quarter.
Patched together and shuffled around after being hit by a slew of injuries, the Badger front five was a wee bit shaky in the win over Illinois and it took a little while to get rolling against Minnesota. Against Penn State, though, the combination of center Ryan Groy, guards Kevin Zeiter and Travis Frederick, and tackles Josh Oglesby and Ricky Wagner put on a clinic, erasing Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, Devon Still, and pounding on the then-No. 8 defense in America for 264 yards and four Montee Ball touchdowns while allowing just one sack. Against Michigan State the first time around, the Badger line came out roaring and made a statement on the opening drive before the Spartan defensive front started winning its share of battles. Wisconsin needs the push for a full four quarters and has to neutralize the aggressive D that leads the Big Ten in sacks.
Wisconsin needs Michigan State to be Michigan State, because over the last two losses in East Lansing, Michigan State was a different teams. The Spartans are awful at converting their third down chances, but they were razor-sharp against the Badger converting 8-of-16 chances and a key fourth down play. They have penalty problems, but they didn’t get flagged in the first game. The special teams have been shaky, but they got a game-changing punt block and Kyler Elsworth came up with a 36-yard punt return. Basically, if MSU doesn’t do the little things right, Wisconsin should be fine.
Why Michigan State Might Win: Lost in the first win over Wisconsin – mainly because of the finish – was the was MSU dominated most of the game. It got steamrolled on early, and Russell Wilson was brilliant moving the ball late, but the Spartans went on 31-3 run in the game’s midsection when the Badger offense didn’t go anywhere. Wilson did next to nothing until the team was in comeback mode late, and he uncharacteristically threw two picks. If he can be pressured early on and the mid-to-deep passes don’t have time to develop, the offense will quickly bog down.
Offensively, Michigan State should be able to throw on the Badger secondary. The defensive backs are UW’s Achilles heel that has rarely been exposed – the corners can be beaten deep. B.J. Cunningham caught six passes for 102 yards and a score in the first game, and while 44 of Kirk Cousins’ 290 yards came on the fluky final play, the passing game worked. Wisconsin’s pass defense might be third in the nation and it might be tenth in pass efficiency defense, but that’s because no one – absolutely no one - on the Badger slate could throw other than the Spartans.
Don’t discount the disrespect factor. Again, Michigan State would’ve gone to the Rose Bowl under the old system, and it really did beat Wisconsin the first time around, yet the Badgers are heavy favorites and no one in any bowl projection anywhere has anything other than a UW-Oregon Rose Bowl. Wisconsin has been mediocre away from Camp Randall losing to MSU and Ohio State and needing a while to put away bad Illinois and Minnesota teams. Michigan State wasn’t great in losses to Notre Dame and Nebraska and struggled to put away Ohio State, but it was fantastic on the road over the last month against Iowa and Northwestern.
What To Watch Out For: Why isn’t Montee Ball front and center in the Heisman chase? He has better numbers than Trent Richardson, he has been far more valuable to the Badgers than Richardson has been for the Tide, and he’s simply been the better player this season running for 1,622 yards and 29 scores to go along with 17 catches for 248 yards and five touchdowns. Despite getting knocked out for a stretch, he ran for 115 yards and a score on just 18 carries against the Spartans the first time around, and he caught two passes for 24 yards and a touchdown. Against Ohio State he ran 17 times for 85 yards and a score and caught three passes for 30 yards and a touchdown. He has scored at least twice in every game, and if he has a big game in the Big Ten championship and the bowl game, he could flirt with 2,000 yards rushing and 40 scores. There isn’t enough momentum to get him the Heisman – the agenda for Richardson and Andrew Luck has already been set – but a huge performance and a Badger win might get him to New York.
Kirk Cousins has had a terrific career. A great player and spokesman for the program, he hasn’t received enough publicity despite leading the team to a piece of the Big Ten title last year and the cusp of a championship this year. He cut down on his interceptions over the second half of the season throwing just two in his last seven games – while throwing 15 touchdown passes over the span – and outside of the blip against Nebraska he has been in command of the offense. Against the Badgers over the last two seasons he completed 42-of-60 throws for 559 yards and six touchdowns with two picks, both last year. Most importantly, he has two wins against UW.
What Will Happen: This is why Russell Wilson came to Wisconsin. The nation’s most efficient passer will make amends for his rough performance the first time around with a sharp game keeping things moving with his feet as well as his arm, while Ball will come up with produce even with all 11 Spartans focusing on stopping him. The Badgers won’t dominate, and they certainly won’t flatten the Spartans like they did the Nittany Lions last week, but they’ll come up with a solid, efficient game to be win the inaugural Big Ten title.
CFN Prediction: Wisconsin 34 … Michigan State 27
-
Click For Latest Line From ATS: LSU -13.5 O/U: 46.5
-
Get Tickets For This Game
- FREE EXPERT COLLEGE FOOTBALL SELECTIONS
