It’s the long-awaited return of the Shamrock Series, except Notre Dame is the away team, wearing their home blue, for a game that is on the Fox Big Noon lineup, and in the Fighting Irish territory of Chicago at Soldier Field. Okay, let’s break down this super weird college football game.
Modern Wisconsin football has operated around the periphery of Notre Dame football although rarely have the 2 schools intertwined. Defensive coordinator Barry Alvarez left South Bend for Madison back in 1990 eventually turning around the Badgers program although this weekend’s meeting will be shockingly the first between the programs since 1964. There’s also the storyline about Wisconsin’s former starting quarterback now suiting up for the Irish this weekend.
Paul Chryst is in his 7th season with Wisconsin and (setting aside a pair of interim situations) is only the 3rd Badgers head coach since Alvarez stepped down after the 2005 season. It’s largely been a successful tenure for Chryst who carries a .740 winning percentage into this weekend’s action with a Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl to his name, plus a controversial close Rose Bowl loss to go with 3 Big Ten West titles.
Notre Dame (+6.5) vs. Wisconsin
Soldier Field
Chicago, Illinois
Date: Saturday, September 25, 2021
Time: 12:00 PM ET
TV: Fox
Typically known for their ManBall™ running game and moderately used passing game, Wisconsin has found itself struggling to find an offensive identity since 2020 and have scored 10 or fewer points in 4 out of their last 6 meetings against Power 5 opponents. However, under a young and promising defensive coordinator the Badgers have continued to find a lot of success stifling opponent offenses and bring one of the nation’s stingiest units to Soldier Field on Saturday.
Wisconsin’s Offense
Wisconsin has gathered an incredible 5 Doak Walker Awards since 1999 when Ron Dayne rumbled his way to the Heisman and all-time NCAA rushing record. Included as the best national running back for the Badgers has been Montee Ball (2012), Melvin Gordon (2014), and Jonathan Taylor (2018-19).
Last year, the offense hit a brick wall as journeyman senior Garret Groshek shared carries with highly touted freshman Jalen Berger and redshirt sophomore Nakia Watson resulting in a shockingly low 164 yards per game on the ground. Watson transferred to Washington State, Berger missed this year’s opener against Penn State, and Wisconsin has since relied heavily on Clemson transfer Chez Mellusi who already has 51 carries in just 7 quarters of play coming into the Notre Dame game.
The line is anchored by veteran senior tackles Tyler Beach (6-6, 312) and Logan Bruss (6-5, 316) while redshirt sophomore Joe Tippmann (6-6, 320) beat out 5th-year senior Kayden Lyles at center. At the guard spots, 5th-year senior Josh Seltzner (6-4, 310) starts on the left and former blue-chip redshirt freshman Jack Nelson (6-7, 304) starts on the right.
Wisconsin had been hoping redshirt sophomore quarterback Graham Mertz would rebound from a poor end to the shortened 2020 season, although that progress hasn’t materialized. He’s yet to throw a touchdown pass, is 11th among Big Ten quarterbacks in passer rating, and has only converted 2 out of 15 passing attempts on 3rd down.
Chryst looks like he’s a manager at Tractor Supply.
As such, it’s difficult to get a read on Wisconsin’s receivers with so little action so far. However, 5th-year senior Jake Ferguson passed up an opportunity with the NFL and is one of the most complete tight ends in the country. He comes into this weekend’s action with 111 catches, 1,237 yards, and 10 touchdowns in his career.
Last year, Wisconsin gave play-calling duties to offensive line coach Joe Rudolph and Chryst admitted it did not go very well. This off-season, Chryst took back the play-calling duties in addition to coaching the quarterbacks, as well.
The Badgers are hoping improvement comes quickly as they fell from 6th in FEI offense in 2019 to 98nd last year. They come into this weekend ranked 38th in FEI offense, 4 spots lower than Notre Dame.
Wisconsin’s Defense
I purposely selected Jim Leonhard for the main picture of this game preview as the Wisconsin defensive coordinator is now in the 5th year of an impressive run and at just 38 years old has become one of the hottest assistants in the country, even interviewing for the Packers job this off-season. As a former walk-on and All-American safety in Madison, Leonhard surely seems in line to be the head coach at Wisconsin someday having coached 3 straight Top 12 FEI defenses with the current team sitting 4th nationally–14 spots higher than the Irish.
He has continued the 3-4 scheme that Wisconsin has used since 2013 when (now Baylor head coach) Dave Aranda was hired whose staff Leonhard joined in 2016 as defensive backs coach. The Badgers like to keep linebackers on the field whenever possible while utilizing a lot of zone blitzing and Cover-1 looks.
Up front, they are big. Very big. Wisconsin routinely walks one of their outside linebackers (and sometimes both) to the edges of the line of scrimmage to create the appearance of 4 or 5-man fronts. Leonhard is aggressive with his linebackers and this weekend’s action will look a lot like the way Marcus Freeman uses his defenders for Notre Dame.
Incoming aggressive linebacker play.
Anchoring the middle of the Wisconsin line is junior Keeanu Benton (6-4, 317) flanked by defensive ends 5th-year senior Matt Henningsen (6-3, 291) and redshirt junior Isaiah Mullens (6-4, 297) as big-time space eaters.
Wisconsin will be getting junior middle linebacker Leo Chenal back after missing the first 2 games of the season due to Covid which will be a big boost to the defense in combination with Jack Sanborn on the inside. These linebackers have combined for 104 tackles and 13 tackles for loss since the start of the Covid shortened 2020 season.
The secondary is by far Wisconsin’s biggest weakness and they could be without starting corner Faion Hicks and safety Collin Wilder who are questionable with injuries.
Bottom line, this is going to be a very difficult defense to move the ball on this weekend. Leonhard’s 3rd down defense (currently ranked 4th nationally and 5th last year) and blitz packages have been dynamite while coaching the Badgers and this feels like an awful matchup against a Notre Dame offense that has continually put itself in 3rd and long situations and sits tied for 85th nationally in conversion rate.
Prediction
It continually blows my mind that Notre Dame hasn’t faced Wisconsin since the opening game of Ara Parseghian’s career with the Irish. Sure, the Badgers fell into a decades-long slump but this was a feisty and fierce rivalry with Notre Dame in the first half of the 20th Century, the campuses are just under a 4-hour car ride apart, plus Wisconsin has been really good for nearly a quarter century now. It’s so weird it’s taken this long to get the series back.
When this 2-game series was announced there was much consternation about no visit to Madison for a game inside Camp Randall Stadium. Yeah, it feels like a missed opportunity especially with this upcoming matchup in Soldier Field which isn’t nearly as fun as the upcoming second meeting at Lambeau Field.
Of course, Wisconsin’s defense is scary. Since the Kelly 2.0 reboot beginning in 2017 the Irish have faced 6 defenses that finished in the top 10 of FEI. The Notre Dame offensive averages in those games are:
- 73.5 rushing yards
- 269.1 total yards
- 16 points
Obviously, it still counts but there’s a major outlier performance last year against Clemson during the regular season. The other 5 games cited above Notre Dame averaged just 9.8 points per game.
Feel the excitement, Chicagoland.
If you want a more positive outlook, Wisconsin doesn’t have nearly the same zip code amount of blue-chip recruiting talent on defense in comparison to those Clemson or Georgia games cited above. And if you’re able to pull it off, the Badgers’ secondary does seem ripe for some decent picking with their injuries.
Nevertheless, all signs point to this being an absolute rock fight with a miniscule 46.5 over/under from Vegas. Over their last 24 games the only program to score at least 30+ points on Wisconsin is Ohio State. We can very likely scratch Notre Dame off the list of being able to score that much this weekend at Soldier Field.
The path to victory for Notre Dame has to come from a dominant defensive performance that may need to be a little more patient, prevent big plays, and get the Badgers offense off the field. Mertz has only completed 1 pass over 20 yards this season (tied for dead last in the nation) and I personally don’t think this is anything close to a vintage Wisconsin rushing attack. There’s certainly a scenario that isn’t too far fetched where the Badgers get completely overwhelmed by Notre Dame’s defense.
Unfortunately, Notre Dame’s offensive line in this game is such a bad mismatch that makes it hard to believe the Irish can survive a war of attrition, to to speak. It’s weird, normally I prefer to downplay the role of the offensive line and you could legitimately make the case the Irish have better and more talented players (especially at most of the offensive skill positions) at many positions compared to Wisconsin. The vast majority of the time that talent advantage can win the day. It’s too bad the Irish offensive line could torpedo the whole operation.
I think turnovers play a big part in this game. The team with the fewest egregious ones wins. I like that if Wisky has to throw Kyle Hamilton is on our side. I think we have more players with big play potential on offense. Hopefully they can exploit the Wisc. secondary. Williams and Tyree are going to catch a lot of dump offs to try to slow Wisky’s blitzing. We need a couple big plays from Austin and Lenzy. Wisky will win time of possession but, the # of offensive plays will be close.(our Incompletions not running clock, their one yd.runs eating time) Coan needs to avoid sacks to stay out of third and longs.
A good game ND 27 Wisc. 20
Time of possession is the dumbest stat that people obsess over (admittedly less so these days). I realized this when I once heard an announcer say “they need to run the ball to give their defense a rest.” Like somehow 3 runs and a punt takes longer than 3 passes and a punt. I guess the defense is only allowed to sit while the clock is running, and they run wind sprints when it’s stopped.
As you mentioned, # of plays is so obviously a more meaningful stat (and probably a lot easier to keep track of). If you care about how tired a defense is, actual time elapsed is also a better metric for how much rest they are getting.
To me the game hinges on 2 questions:
1) Does Notre Dame waste time even trying to run the ball
2) Can ND limit Wisconsin’s run game
I want to see 40 passes from Coan. Might as well make it like the Georgia game plan and not even try to run.
Go 4 wides a lot, keep them out of base defense (always seems to mess with 3-4 teams).
If that happens, Notre Dame could have a shot. If they can keep the Wisconsin run game relatively bottled up it will be looking up.
And, for that reason, I think ND scores a lot more points than most the projections if they’re taking shots down the field. I’m calling a 27-23 game, with either team having a shot to end up on either side.
Kind of weird note on keeping them out of their base D… Leonhard really, really likes his linebackers. They do play a good amount of nickel, but their nickel is a 2-4-5 – they actually pull one DL off the field for the extra DB. Presumably one or both OLBs play up at the line when they do that, but still, it’s unusual. Neither here nor there as far as affecting the prediction, but it’s worth noting.
ND has been averaging just over 70 plays per game. We probably don’t get to that many against Wisconsin but if we do Coan better throw 50 times.
Agreed we should be throwing it as much as possible.
Indeed. In this particular scenario, I’d love to see us come out and just Air Raid the hell out of Wisconsin. At least to loosen things up for running later in the game.
Definitely a weird one. I could see all kinds of outcomes here. If our OL plays as poorly as they’ve threatened to at times this year and leans on the defense on three and out after three and out, it could ugly for ND. On the flip side, if ND can hit a couple of big plays early and win early down defense, they could force Wisconsin into catchup mode and I think that would go very poorly for the Badgers.
And in between those two are a ton of scenarios that I think are much more likely. I’d be really surprised if this game hits the over (line is currently 45). I think our offense will be inconsistent but at times effective, and our defense will mostly bottle up their one-dimensional offense. I really don’t know what to predict here. I think the final will be something like 16-13 in one direction or the other. And, what the hell, I’ll say ND.
EDIT: I was surprised to see today that all five guys at ISD picked ND to win. Mike Frank has it 27-23, our buddy Jamie Uyeyama 17-16, Christian McCollum 24-21, Matt Freeman 24-20, and the legendary John Brice 26-20. Christian’s is especially surprising given that his season prediction was 11-1 with a loss to Wisconsin, lol.
I like 16-13. So what the hell, I’ll go the other way.
When I saw the prediction above with ND at 17 points I thought that was about right. Except I think our D will hold a very weak offense to even less points (assuming no turnovers) and we’ll scrape by with an ugly win.
You absolutely nailed the offensive points scored in this game!
I’ve seen lines as high as Wisconsin by 6.5, which doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. ND is 3-0, has played and won a road night game, and has beaten two P5 opponents (albeit one very bad P5 opponent). Wisconsin is 1-1, has not left Madison, and has not beaten a P5 opponent.
Head to head, the teams broadly seem like the same thing, with ND being a more talented version of that thing. We certainly have better options at QB than Wisconsin does.
Around Week 4 is usually when Kelly teams start hitting their stride. At ND, Kelly is 9-2 in Week 4.
I definitely wouldn’t put money on this game, but I’m cautiously optimistic — let’s say 24-21 Irish.
I am cautiously optimistic. After rewatching the Purdue game I feel like the OL did improve quite a bit from the first 2 games. They seemed to at least get a bit of a push and moved some people to create at least some small holes. Their errors against Purdue seemed to be more around mental errors (false starts, missing blitzers) and less around not being able to block people.
Sure, there were times when an individual lineman got beat and I’m sure that will happen against Wisconsin but it seemed to happen less against Purdue than in the first two weeks and Purdue definitely had the most talented DL thus far. So, based on assuming our OL will make small improvements again and hoping that our WR can actually catch the ball this week I think we could score 24 points on Wisconsin.
If we score 24 points, then I’think our defense will be ok and able to hold them below that. So, I’m saying Notre Dame 24, Wisconsin 21
This is Nd-MSU 2013 all over again!
It will be ugly, it will be brutal, it will be “boring” by hot take Twitter definition, but for all their manballness, that plays into our biggest strength too, the defensive front!
ND 10, wisc 6. Get ready for some week 1, 7th grade football style action!
16-13 ND.
Both defenses are borderline elite and both offenses need serious help.
A defensive touchdown is the difference.
Any rumors on Hinish’s status?
Nothing firm but the vibe I get is that more than likely he’s out. Then again, he’s from the Black Knight school of pain management, so who knows.
Hopefully its just a flesh wound! Lol.
Oh there are lots of rumors but I’ve not seen anything that is definite. Kelly wouldn’t rule him out for sure so I would guess is there is any truth to the rumors he is going to be a game time decision.
What’s the injury? I don’t remember anything from last game with him.
Nobody seems to know. There’s rumors he may be out and BK alluded to the fact that he might be a game time decision.
I was in the stands last weekend for the Purdue game and didn’t notice anything obvious.
Perhaps something happened in practice. That would be a big loss.
And one figures game-time decisions likely means he doesn’t play much either way.
This seemed an incomplete assessment. What about Coan outclassing Mertz as former W. qbs. What about NDs front four being more talented than W.’s offense. What about NDs fast receivers being able to abuse W.’s awful secondary. ND having superior talent and depth everywhere. Recognition that NDs OL is young and improving each game (meaning it’s not going to get worse but better).
Cmon your articles are consistently higher quality than this. This seemed unnecessarily pessimistic.
I’ll believe our WRs can abuse opponents when that actually happens. They had a lot of big drops against Purdue, several of which could have turned that game into a comfortable blowout. Maybe that will be corrected against Wisconsin, but on the other hand, maybe our WRs just aren’t that good.
Last week was frustrating, but hopefully it sets us up for a bounce-back week where Coan connects on some of the long balls that were missed vs Purdue.
People keep putting the blame on Coan and yeah he overthrew a couple but there were some straight up drops and I’d say that the receivers so far are 100% are more in need of fixing problems than him
Maybe his article was actually just unnecessarily realistic. I mean, sure I ended up predicting a narrow victory and Eric predicts a close loss but there was nothing that I really disagreed with in his analysis.
I just happen to think that the OL will be a bit better and while the result will probably not be better I’m banking on the WR not being completely awful this game and actually coming through with some clutch big plays. Honestly, the Wisconsin secondary might not be as good as Purdue’s so hopefully my prediction will be true.
I think that you might just be inciting something here with your response because if you actually read all of Eric’s stuff you know this is right on par for his analysis and predictions.
I do read a lot here (long time lurker, first time poster).
But I am free to my opinion and I stand by it.
Anyone want to lay a bet? $50 that ND wins by 4 or more to first taker.
We will figure out payment method (PayPal?) later.
Stop downvoting me and take the bet, lol. I am serious in standing up for this team this week. No games.
I’m not saying that you are not entitled to your opinion. You certainly are, I’m just saying that this site is unique b/c of its attempt at true being honest and truthful as opposed to an echo chamber of homerism or defeatism.
Many of us appreciate that and you seemed to call out Eric for a poorly written article (which it clearly was not and was up to his usual standard) just because he refuses to just blindly pick ND to win every tough game.
Understood. I like this site for the very reasons you stated, However, it is my opinion he was being overly pessimistic, which I am welcome to.
If you support honest opinions as you say, you must support mine or be accused of your own version of community groupthink, yes?
I don’t think that is how it works.
I don’t actually support Eric’s opinion. I predicted that ND will win 24-21. I just support Eric’s honest analysis of what he thinks will lead to our defeat.
I support you having an opinion I just don’t support you saying someone is pessimistic because they pick against ND in a game that is, even looking through rose colored glasses, pretty clearly a toss up.
Pessimistic is an adjective. Sorry that you cannot abide by the rules in the English language.
They are a public site and opinions in their work are part of the deal. He knows this.
Plus I backed up my opinion with a summary of my views.
You may not like it but I have done nothing wrong.
Bet is still open. Someone take me up on it.
“Fight me, you cowards!” lol
[feel free to ignore this/this site could use a “delete post” button]
The OL may not even have competition as the worst unit of the Kelly era right now, to gloss over their struggles as if it’s no big deal seems pretty incomplete to me!
You’re entitled to your opinion but no I don’t think anyone cares to bet you money over the result that seems unnecessarily weird.
Eric,
The line is bad now but talented. We are dealing with third string LT and other injury issues. Baker was a decent recruit, so it is not unreasonable to expect him to progress through his learning curve and improve week to week.
I do think Cornell is out of place at LG and that’s a head scratcher from the coaching staff, but they must really value Patterson at center. They could flip spots in the line and I would be ok with that.
Lugg was never going to be great at tackle, I think he is a guard.
Ultimately the staff may reconfigure the line a bit as people come back. But there is still lots of talent and potential there for growth throughout the season.
I guess I never saw this years edition as a playoff contender, so I am not as down as some on the early shaky start. It’s about what I expected. I still think they can beat a Wisconsin team with an abjectly awful QB and with our front 7 which is pretty good.
Bertrand a very nice surprise at LB for us due to injuries. Overall our depth players are learning on the job and will improve as the season
progresses.
Can’t get the ball to your talented receivers if your OL is a turnstile.
*man tapping head .gif*
I think you make some good points and agree with many of them. However, I think what most people (at least I) have a problem with is your implication that the article was poorly written. To be fair, looking back at your comment, you really did not say that, but you did implicitly criticize the “quality” of the article.
Let’s just hope that your opinions about the game are correct.
Thanks. This site has fabulous writers. I just thought the opinion was a bit negative.
The defense so far is showing up. Cross with a big play in the run early.
Irish need to settle down here, but they showed in the second series that they can move the ball on Wisconsin.
Go Irish!!
Well I guess it’s a good thing none of you took me up on my bet.
Not how I thought the game would have turned out, but I think we are seeing the Irish have quality young depth. Green, but they fight hard and know how to win.
Excited for the rest of the year.
Go Irish!
Cheers all and enjoy the win!
For some reason I cannot get a good feel for this game. I find myself imagining either (a) a game like the last Michigan game where a good opponent has a good game plan and takes advantage of ND’s weak points (but maybe not as much scoring, Wisc 24 ND 13), or (b) ND takes shots downfield and scores somewhat consistently (ND 31 Wisc 21). If I had to pick one of those, I’ll go with the latter
Irish by 50 to numb the pain of major league baseball’s existence
Agree with our line being a big problem, but them scoring 23 on us seems a bit much unless turnovers help them which could happen. Buchner seems healthy and I’m surprised you didn’t mention him. Do you think they’re scared to use him because of how good Wisky’s D is? I would like to see a deep shot from Buchner to Lenzy or Austin because they’ll be looking run when he’s in
Hot take – with Hinish out, Buchner starts.