Wisconsin vs Iowa Big 10 Football Picks and Predictions

Wisconsin vs Iowa Betting Preview

WagerTalk college football handicapper Tony Finn offers his Wisconsin vs Iowa Big Ten football betting preview for Saturday, October 30 from Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin. At the time of posting, the Badgers are a -3.5 home favorite over the Hawkeyes with the total sitting at a very low 36.5 points.

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Wisconsin vs Iowa Predictions

Wisconsin Badgers -3.5 vs Iowa Hawkeyes
Total: 36.5 Points
Iowa is 5-0 against the spread in the Hawkeyes’ last five road games.
Wisconsin is 1-6 against the spread in the Badgers’ last seven home games.

The Iowa Hawkeyes and the Wisconsin Badgers square off in a battle of Big 10 West Division foes. The matchup at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison on Saturday is slated to see first kick at high noon ET. The Hawkeyes were off last weekend with a scheduled bye. The last time that the Hawkeyes were seen was in an ugly loss to the Purdue Boilermakers. Wisconsin has won three in a row after last Saturday’s 30-13 victory over Purdue.

Iowa’s offense is as challenged as I can remember, a Big 10 football school being. The previous statement was as hard to write as it will be to say in radio work the rest of this Halloween week. There isn’t a conference in the FBS that has more old-school traditional coaches than the Big 10. Furthermore, those coaching staffs also sport designed schemes that are the equivalent of watching paint dry.

Wisconsin kicked off the 2021 campaign by losing three of their first four games. Badgers’ fans will argue that all three losses were to ranked teams. Pundits will counter by stating that Whiskey averaged just over 13 points per game in the losses to Penn State, Notre Dame, and Michigan while allowing nearly 33 points per game in those losses. Furthermore, a team that wants to hang their hat on defense being their calling card surrendering 30-plus points to the likes of Michigan and Notre Dame doesn’t speak to defensive strength.

Regardless of Wisconsin’s record, who the Badgers have defeated and been defeated by the program is all about defense. The coaching staff has no other argument. When your quarterback has passed for less than 150 yards in five of the seven games on the season and averaged 180 yards passing in the three losses offense is inevitably going to be left off the literature on the pamphlets when attempting to sell the program to the fan base and recruits.

Wisconsin was last seen defeating the Boilermakers in West Lafayette. The Badgers earned a 30-13 road victory this past Saturday. In the victory, the defense once again held the opponent’s offense to less than 14 points, just as they have in the other two wins in their three-game run.

Developing and organizing a game preview for these two teams is equal to trying to decide what to have for dinner when your choices are peanut butter or bologna. The decision is typically going to be based on the least of the two, not the best. It is also quite possible that if a dinner conversation was presented that person’s memory failed, didn’t remember, or avoided the dialog rather than explain one’s lack of interest.

Neither of these two programs, as they are built and how they present themselves, is going to excite most college football players that have aspirations to be a part of an NFL offense. Call me crazy if you want to argue for the sake of arguing, but even the diagnosed crazy is likely to raise eyebrows to those who dare.

The Hawkeyes and the Badgers will be able to change the balance of power in the West Division on Saturday (11am CT, ESPN) in Madison. But outside Iowa and Wisconsin, does anyone really … really care?

Kudos go to the hard-working blue-collar players on these two programs that buoy school and program support. Traditional football fans would offer a butt slap and an approving nod or an “atta boy” loud enough so those who needed to hear it could. Earlier this month, after a home-field victory over Penn State, running back Tyler Goodson could be seen head fighting the good fight.

“The leaders on this team are trying to make sure everybody knows that we can still accomplish what we want to accomplish and that’s to go out there and hopefully accomplish a Big Ten title,” the junior told the local Iowa City media.

The Iowa football program has a rich history of success. However, it still surprised me, a longstanding college football fan that dates to as early as the late 1960s, that recent Iowa victories earned responses from the fan base that seemed desperate. I am not claiming that the Hawkeye fans have rushed the field after defeating an unranked opponent but even the Hawkeye players were somewhat startled following the 23-20 victory on October 9 over Penn State at Kinnick Stadium.

Chad Leistikow, who contributes for and to Hawk Central, wrote “As the black-and-gold striped sections of Kinnick Stadium emptied onto the turf of Duke Slater Field after third-ranked Iowa’s 23-20 vanquishing of No. 4 Penn State, Hawkeye players were out of time to plan their exits.”

“Matt Hankins, a fifth-year senior who experienced the stunning 2017 win against Ohio State as a true freshman, made the veteran move of darting to the players’ tunnel safely, right away,” Leistikow added.

Another fan experience by a member of the football team seemed more concerned about finding his way to the locker room after the game than enjoying his victory walk from the frontlines to the haven the players enjoy in the good and the bad. Leistikow continued his experience of the after-game mood and feel of the win over the Nittany Lions, “Spencer Petras got knocked to the ground briefly, emerging quickly so he wouldn’t get trampled. (What a downer that would’ve been to lose your starting quarterback in the celebration.)”

“That was the hardest part about the game,” all-American center Tyler Linderbaum quipped. “Trying to get out of that mosh pit.”

It isn’t unusual that a school fan base rushes the field after a home victory over the No. 4 ranked team in college football. What is difficult to wrap my arms around is that the fanbase for the team that won was Iowa Hawkeye fans. A group that is used to winning. Most notably is that their team, the Iowa Hawkeyes, were the No. #3 ranked team in all of college football.

Picking up what I am laying down?

To the defense of the Iowa Hawkeye fanatical, since the league established the East and West Divisions in 2014, the Badgers have won four West titles. The Wildcats of Northwestern have two high-fives, including last season. Iowa checks in with one trophy that was earned in 2015. Better one cheers enthusiasm than question it. With no vested interest in either of these two Big 10 proud traditions, I am rooting that Iowa earns a victory at Camp Randall on Saturday, with that result eventually offering the Hawkeyes a second-ever West Division first-place finish.

Iowa controls its destiny in the conference. The Hawkeyes are tied with Minnesota atop the West with five contests remaining inside the division. A win on Saturday puts the Hawkeyes two games atop Wisconsin with four to play. A victory would also, obviously, offer the Hawks the head-to-head edge.

Iowa has had an extra week to dissect the Whiskey defense. They have had an extra week to ask the school’s physicists which direction of which running play gives the offense the best chance to find consistency.

We here at WagerTalk have a request per se, riddle us this, if you will: When presented with determining the most probable scenario, which of these two statistical lines impress, inspire or encourage you enough to push paper across the sportsbook counter backing one of the other?

In the black and gold corner; 73rd nationally in scoring (28.0) – a number aided by three defensive scores – 120th in total offense (310.9 yards per game) and 103rd in rushing (116.6 YPG).

And in the red and white corner; 21.1 points per game ranks them 110th nationally. They’re 90th in total offense (364.9 YPG) and 123rd in passing offense (146.0).

Wisconsin sophomore Graham Mertz ranks 13th among Big Ten quarterbacks in efficiency rating (103.3). The Whiskey second-year signal-caller is two spots behind Iowa’s Spencer Petras (124.3). Mertz has two touchdowns and seven interceptions. Petras owns nine touchdowns against six interceptions.

This Big 10 showdown shapes up as being the lowest scoring game in the college ranks this weekend. Iowa ranks second in the Big Ten in scoring defense (14.6 PPG) and the Badgers reside in the fifth chair (18.4).

Circa of Las Vegas opened this Big 10 matchup with Wisconsin as a 3.0-point home favorite on Sunday morning. Iowa and Wisconsin sharp money battled on Sunday morning, with Wisconsin backers being the first to land a punch, moving Circa’s number from the opening minus-3 to minus-4. Iowa supporters responded with a left-jab minutes later, returning the 4 to a flat-3 at Circa.

But wait on it… not even a full minute later, to be accurate, in 49 seconds the Whiskey faithful issued a reverse-roundhouse-wheel-kick on the Hawkeye’s offering pushing in for the second time on Sunday morning and gladly taking the minus-3 points. They grabbed the -3, moving the Circa handicap to 3.5-points. The Wisconsin group appeared to have left the Circa board with a Sunday night send-off leaving the glowing and definitive minus-3.5 to be viewed by all through the early Monday morning hours at the Circa shop and on the Circa app.

You have to; you know you want to; Yes, your instincts were correct. The Iowa sharp-money, an hour-and-a-half later, came back to return what they believe to be wrong to a right. The back-and-forth on Sunday between the Iowa and Wisconsin supporters ended, leaving the Sunday close of business at Circa with the number the book opened it at, Wisconsin as 3-point home chalk.

FYI: Circa management approached the on-sight sportsbook doors on Monday morning to find bits of cheese littered here and there as if a group of individuals had camped themselves overnight waiting for the book to open.

At 9:28 and 40 seconds am PT those Cheeseheads that had been waiting for the opportunity to get back in the fight found the ring. At the time this Iowa Hawkeye and Wisconsin Badger game preview went to press, Thursday, Oct 28, Wisconsin was 3.5-point favorites for Saturday’s game at Camp Randall.

There has yet to be any buyback by Iowa. I wouldn’t recommend that one consider pushing in on Whiskey based on the lack of another buyback by the Hawkeye backers. What I do believe in terms of accessing this matchup is given the opportunity, which of these two teams could manufacture a touchdown while the other might well fail. A logical lean here is determining if the home field, Camp Randall, is worthy of the three-plus points they are being issued in the handicap. My answer would be, there is no reason. My lean is backing Iowa and taking the three and the all-important hook. After all, the total in this game practically prohibits one from laying any number.

Michigan State has covered the spread in 11 of the Spartans’ last 13 meetings with Michigan. Can the Wolverines finally shake free from their in-state rivals? Join Joe, Dave, Teddy and Ralph for College Football Daily. https://t.co/ouzCvpyfa7

— WagerTalk (@WagerTalk) October 28, 2021

Wisconsin vs Iowa Analysis from The GoldSheet

Iowa is still smarting from it’s lone loss of the season and Kirk Ferentz has historically been a good bet-on coach after a loss. The loss against the Boilermakers was the result of the Hawkeyes running into a hot hand from Purdue QB Aidan O’Connell, who threw for a season-high 375 yds. and an inability to corral Purdue’s array of receivers. The way this season has gone, generating that type of air game seems beyond the capability of Mertz and a Wisconsin passing game that has been emphasized less and less in each of the last five games.

Wisconsin vs Iowa Video Preview

The pecking order in the Big Ten West will look a lot clearer when the final whistle in this one blows? WagerTalk college football handicappers Kelly Stewart, Dave Cokin and Adam Trigger offer their Wisconsin vs Iowa predictions.

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