Sitting just shy of the top five in the AP poll, Dan Lanning's Oregon Ducks have been dominant, trouncing the clearly inferior opponents on their schedule.
The Ducks lead the nation in average scoring margin, at +27.0, with conference foes Indiana, Ohio State, and USC also placing in the top five in the nation. As long as the Ducks keep playing complimentary, comprehensive football, they should keep leaving fans impressing on the scoreboard, even with the schedule becoming more difficult.
The Badgers will travel nearly 2000 miles en route to Eugene, where they will be an eye-popping 32.5 point underdog. That should tell you all you need to know about the Badgers thus far, a season plagued by injuries and misfortune.
It's a bad year to be a head coach if you have Oregon on your schedule -- unless you are Curt Cignetti of course... Oregon has played seven games this season, three head coaches on that schedule have been fired.
Long-tenured Oklahoma State head coach was the first on the chopping block, just over two weeks following the Ducks drubbing of the Cowboys, 69-3. It was Oklahoma State's biggest defeat since 1907, and when the Cowboys followed it up with losses to Tulsa and Baylor, it was officially the end of the Gundy era in Stillwater.
James Franklin (Penn State) and Trent Bray (Oregon State) were both fired on October 12th. Oregon's dramatic double overtime win against Penn State added yet another loss to James Franklin's ugly AP top-10 and AP top-5 records, and it essentially broke Penn State, leading to a collapse in a way we have rarely, if ever seen. Following the loss to the Ducks, Penn State lost to the (then) conference bottom-feeders, UCLA and Northwestern.
Oregon State began their season 0-7, including a 41-7 loss to the Ducks in Eugene. After loss seven, a blowout embarassment against Wake Forest of the ACC, Trent Bray was relieved of his duties.
All that to say, Oregon has played some very troubled teams in dire need of a reset, with the Ducks exposing the worst of their flaws, significantly overmatching all three teams.
The oddsmakers and fans both expect Oregon to do the same this weekend when the Badgers come into town. With the aforementioned coaches gone, Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell's seat is as hot as it gets. Since taking over in 2023, Fickell is 14-18, far below expectations of a program used to Rose Bowl appearances and success in the Big Ten.
If you combine the Bret Bielema, Gary Andersen, and Paul Chryst eras of Wisconsin football (2006-2022, seventeen seasons), you'll find nine seasons with ten or more wins, and five more with eight or more wins. That's 14/17 successful seasons, relative to the standard, and 9/17 with seasons that would rival most team's in the nation.
The Wisconsin teams of the past had a clear, quantifiable identity, built on elite play in the trenches, and dominant tailbacks. Under Fickell, the Badgers have gone away from that, looking to modernize the offense. Was it needed? Seemingly not. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. To take the most glaring example, there's a reason that the service academies still run the triple option, even if sometimes it operates out of the shotgun, or looks a bit different than it did in the past.
Watching Wisconsin's offense feels like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole -- it doesn't work. Running air raid-esque, RPO and other modernized concepts with the make up of that roster isn't working. This isn't to say that they need to stick in I-formation and run iso and power all game, but getting back to the roots would not hurt the success or identity of this team, an identity they desperately need to return.
The 2024 season was Wisconsin's first missed bowl game since 2001. There are plenty of directions the finger could point to figure out why this drop off happened. The removal of divisons in the Big Ten (and thus harder schedules), the expansion of the conference, and injuries have played a huge role.
Wisconsin used to be apart of the Big Ten West, where they were able to really separate from the rest of the pack. The West was made up of Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern, Nebraska, Minnesota, Purdue, and Illinois, leaving the East divison with all of the top dogs, such as Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, and Penn State. Having much of the schedule made up of the West division led to lots of wins, Big Ten championship game appearances, and trips to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl.
Injuries have certainly plagued the Fickell era as well. Regardless of the offensive system, it's hard to get much of anything done without a successful quarterback. Last season, Miami transfer Tyler Van Dyke tore his ACL before conference play began. A brutal blow that led to former three-star Braedyn Locke taking over as QB1, a role he struggled in.
Those misfortunes followed the Badgers into 2025. They brought in Billy Edwards Jr. from Maryland, who injured his knee in their opener vs Miami of Ohio, and despite a brief return, appears out for the remainder of the season. Two quarterbacks have seen significant snaps for Wisconsin this year, Danny O'Neil and Hunter Simmons. Their combined TD-INT ratio is 6-9, and have been sacked 17 times, behind an offensive line featuring multiple redshirt freshmen.
O'Neil has been the better of the two, he offers a rushing threat, and an ability to extend plays when needed. He has also been a far better passer, but nonetheless, Oregon will have to prepare for both quarterbacks to potentially appear.
It's been a series of unfortunate events for the Badgers under Luke Fickell, and he is at risk of being fired, only if the athletic department and boosters are willing to dig deep into their pockets to open up yet another power-four head coaching job. His buyout is north of $25 million, which in all likelihood, makes him too expensive to fire mid-season, but it might have to get done either way. It's ugly...
Should the Ducks win in convincing fashion this weekend, Fickell's seat will only get hotter, and he is at serious risk to be fired.
When Oregon went to Wisconsin last season, they were met with a surprising battle, ending in a hard-fought 16-13 victory that needed clutch plays and special teams to get it done.
Though anything can happen, a result that looks similar to week 12 of 2024 is highly unlikely. Weird things happen on the road, and for opposing teams, finding a win in the teeth of Autzen Stadium is as hard as it gets. Indiana's win at Oregon was just the second home loss of the Dan Lanning era for the Ducks.
Kickoff is set for 4:00PM local time, in Eugene. Oregon will look to extend their 4-3 all-time series lead over Wisconsin, which began in 1977. Two of those matchups are Rose Bowl victories for the Ducks, two electric matchups, including my all-time favorite Ducks game on New Year's Day of 2019.