For the love of God....

What now? More fights, more drankin', and road rage. This is beyond disturbing. The 2007 Nits are now looking more like an episode of COPS (sans the Midwest white trash), than they are a football team.

I wrote my roommates about the issues. Mike replied thussly:

"Who cares. I'm done following every rumor posted on a message board.
Especially about idiots fighting. Joe's not gonna say anything about it
anytime soon anyway, when the fallout happens, we'll know. Some of
those message boards are retarded, like when I read one guy having an
"inside source" that hazelton was definitely coming to PSU. "

True that. Plus, pretending in my head that nothing is happening sure makes concentrating on this week's game against Wisconsin easier.

Figure 1-2: We don need no stinkin' batchers

Wisconsin rolls into Happy Valley in a near free-fall after losing to Illinois. Sounds familiar.

The Good

• They lost starting WR Swan for the season, and to make matters worse, their high falootin' defense gave up 289 yds on the ground last week, and 121 thru the air with the juice even throwing for a TD. This is the hallmark of an option offense, which would be great if Mills or Robinson at the helm.
• Donovan is averaging 2 INTs over the last two games (Illinois, MSU).
• There offense put up only 13 points on Iowa at home.
• The Citadel rang 31 points up on them.
• Have not had a cohesive game yet, relying on either Hill or Donovan to carry them.
• Hill has health problems (groin)

The Bad

• Hill and Donovan are capable of carrying this team past the Nits.

The Ugly

Intangibles

• Home game
• 3:30 start time leads to alcohol fueled fans without hangovers. Loud noises and sudden movements will not frighten them. Which is good, because the towels they are bringing will not scare the Badgers. We are going to need the crowd in this one.

Other Notables

Wisconsin lost the keystone of their OL in Joe Thomas, while our young D-Line is getting better. This favors us in that Hill will have much less room to run. I suspect much of the same gameplan as Michigan, defensively, which is nice because they really only put up 7 points on us. However, Donovan is better than Mallett, but has a lesser talented receiving core (see injury above).

The Wisconsin D is going to do everything they can to stop the run early, and make Morelli throw downfield. Morelli put up 134 yards in the first half last week, with the majority of yardage coming in the 2nd quarter. This was after Royster dismantled the Iowa D that only lets up 83 yards a game on the ground.

Morelli passing in the redzone has been downright scary. Last week, I am pretty sure he would have been benched had not DWill broken up the potential INT in the end zone.

Predictions

• The PSU playcalling has vastly improved since the Michigan nightmare. Mistakes now can be attributed to the players, for the most part.
• I really don't know if they are going to let Morelli throw too often in the red zone, but if it does happen, I would think they would insert Brackett, Golden, and Quarless for the jump ball.
• Both of our lines have improved, and even dominated last week.
• Morelli had one bad pick and a few bad passes last week. No bad picks, and a few errant passes will be tolerated at this point.
• Supposed to be some wind in the Valley on Saturday, so I wouldn't expect 53-yard FGs from Kelly.

PSU has not won a close game this year. PSU 31 Wisc 21