Most notably, both head coaches are different, and both teams figure to throw the ball a much higher percentage of the time than they did in Ohio State’s 30-23 overtime win in 2016.
The stakes are still high, though, and the third-ranked Buckeyes are on upset alert against a Badgers squad still harboring hopes of winning the Big Ten West.
Here are five things to know about the game:
1. Ohio State wants to avoid missteps of the past.
Ryan Day has not coached at Wisconsin before, but the fifth-year head coach of the Buckeyes does know what it is like for a top five Ohio State team to get tripped up on the road after a big win like the one they enjoyed over Penn State last week.
He was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach when Iowa stunned Ohio State 55-24 in 2017 and when Purdue dealt the Buckeyes a 49-20 upset in 2018.
“I thought it was a solid week of practice, but if you want to be a championship-level team, you have to bring it every week,” Day said. “That means battling every week, not starting to cut corners. That’s kind of the human element. Let me see if I can get away with not having this meal or going to be a little bit later or not doing this much film work or whatever those things are. If we want to get to where we want to be, we have to be consistent. We know this is going to be a big challenge. We know it’s going to be rocking there. They have a very good team. They’re well-coached so we have to play our best football.”
2. Ignoring the noise is important for the Buckeyes both before and during the game.
One way to become ripe for an upset is to hear too much praise, something Day hopes his team did not do in the six days after a dominant 20-12 win over Penn State.
“I still come to work every day thinking we’re not very good, and I feel like we should have won by 30 points,” Day said. “You have to have that mentality because whether good, bad or indifferent, you have to ignore what’s going on outside. Because what matters is what’s going on in this building right here and getting better and winning on Saturday.”
The Buckeyes expect the crowd to be raucous when the game kicks off, so they are bringing back the silent count they first had to go to last month when they traveled to Notre Dame.
“It’s actually easier once you get the rhythm down, but at the same time you can’t have a rhythm where the defensive guy knows what’s coming,” right tackle Josh Fryar said.
3. Getting going faster remains a goal for Ohio State.
One way to avoid the Badgers crowd being a factor would be for Ohio State to open up an early lead.
The Buckeyes have tended to start slowly before finding some rhythm in the second half, something quarterback Kyle McCord is keenly aware of.
“I feel like everybody knows on offense we really haven’t put together a complete full game yet,” McCord said. “And there’s been times where we’ve been rolling and putting points on the board, and there’s been times where we needed to have it, and we did. But at the same time, I know that everybody on the offense can’t say from quarter one to quarter four, we put together a complete game. So that’s still something that we’re chasing.”
4. Luke Fickell does not want any focus on him.
Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell grew up in Columbus, played nose tackle for Ohio State and was an assistant for the Buckeyes for more than a decade, but his current title is all that matters to him this week.
“It’s about our team,” Fickell told reporters in Madison this week. “It’s about our program. It’s about the journey we’re on and the process we’re in.
“Not the specifics of, ‘Hey, you went to school there. Hey, you played there. Hey, you’ve got guys on your staff from there.’ When the ball’s kicked off, that will have absolutely no effect on anything that happens on that field, so we try to just focus on the things that will have the greatest effect on Saturday night.”
Credit: DaytonDailyNews
5. “Air Wisconsin” still trying to get off the ground.
Unlike the face of their head coach, the Badgers’ offense will not be familiar to Ohio State fans who are used to watching Wisconsin’s ground-and-pound attack.
Fickell hired spread offense guru Phil Longo to install his version of the “Air Raid” offense in Madison, and so far the transition has been less than smooth.
Aside from the Badgers’ lining up in more three-receiver sets, Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles noted the main difference is Wisconsin has more packaged plays that could be a run or a pass.
The Badgers also have a new starting quarterback in Braedyn Locke, who is the reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Week after leading a comeback win at Illinois last week.
That was his first start following the loss of Tanner Mordecai to a broken hand.
“They’re still running the same offense,” Knowles said. “He’s very similar. Maybe he doesn’t have as much experience, but they’re really similar guys. Same offense. You could tell that when (Locke) got some reps underneath him and got into the flow of the game he did a really good job.”
No matter who is taking the snaps or how the Badgers line up, their main weapon on offense is 242-pound running back Braelon Allen, who leads the Big Ten in rushing.
SATURDAY’S GAME
Ohio State at Wisconsin, 7:30 p.m., NBC, 1410
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