By Mike Wynn Sports
The 10th ranked Wisconsin Badgers are 2-0 on the young season and making their first road trip of the season to face the 21st ranked Fresno St Bulldogs. Fresno St 1-0 with a big road win over Rutgers to kick off the season, and Pat Hill is hoping to splash onto the national scene with a win over a top 10 opponent. It will be a great atmosphere for this game Saturday night as Fresno St head coach Pat Hill is billing this game as the biggest game in the history of their stadium, and it better be after they turned down a one million dollar offer from the Badgers to move this game to Lambeau Field in Green Bay. These two teams have met twice and both games were played in Madison with Wisconsin edging Fresno 23-21 in 2002, and losing 32-20 in 2001. This will be Wisconsin’s first trip into Bulldog stadium and it should be a fun one to watch. So let’s take a look at both these teams and we’ll start with the visiting Wisconsin Badgers.
Wisconsin comes into this contest having won two games pretty handily over MAC conference opponents Akron & Marshall. Badgers simply ran over Akron in the opener racking up 404 yards on the ground led by PJ Hill’s 210. Two turnovers in the red zone and a late Akron touchdown with 22 seconds remaining gave the Zips the point spread cover in week 1. Week 2 was a different story for the Badgers as the Marshall Thundering Herd thundered out to a 14-0 lead before Wisconsin ground them down in the final 3 quarters of the game and reeled off the final 51 points of the game. Unlike the Akron game the Badgers were not able to simply run Marshall out of Camp Randall. Marshall was well prepared to sell out against the run and they did shut down the Badgers running game early, but QB Allan Everidge showed he could throw the ball and Wisconsin racked up 329 yards through the air. Throw in three 3rd quarter turnovers and the deal was sealed on Marshall last week. Not including bowl play Wisconsin has been rough on non-conference opponents recently winning 7 straight on the road and on neutral sites with the last loss coming back in 2001 at Oregon. Badgers will also get a little healthier and better this week with the return of receiver Travis Beckhum to the line up.
Fresno St comes into this contest with some extra prep time for this one as Pat Hill’s bulldogs haven’t played since beating Rutgers on the road back on Sept 1st. Fresno was able to keep Rutgers out of the score column until the 4th quarter with help of some bend but don’t break defense and a couple of turnovers. Rutgers was missing Ray Rice as Fresno St held his replacement Kordell Young to 96 yards on 26 carries. Pat Hill had to be pleased with the effort of his ball club playing 3,000 miles from home in Rutgers Stadium that’s been a strong home field for the Scarlet Knights. Fresno St’s field general is senior QB Tom Brandstater who completed 11-24 passes for 216 yards against Rutgers. The Bulldogs got 163 yards on the ground from sophomore RB Ryan Mathews, who also scored all 3 Fresno St touchdowns in the game. Fresno St is no stranger to playing the big boys as Pat Hill has taken on that we’ll play anybody, anytime, anywhere attitude for this program. Pat Hills’s Bulldogs have been solid moneymakers going 34-23, and they’ve raked in the cash in non-conference action cashing 30 of 48 under Hill.
Bottom line is that this game is going to be a tough physical game, and I’m going to side with Fresno St here tonight. Wisconsin is taking a big step up in class after facing a couple of MAC schools and with the extra prep time for Fresno St, I think we’ll see a bit of an upset here tonight. Take whatever points you can get and side with Fresno St Saturday night.