Wisconsin Badgers are kicking off their season on Friday night against Illinois. Badgers are currently ranked 14th even though they have not played all season. Is that right? Who knows. This is a weird year. I’ll be honest, I haven’t paid much attention to college football rankings and probably will not until the middle of November. That is also when the first College Football Playoff rankings come out. Let’s break down if the Wisconsin Badgers are properly rated, overrated, or underrated to start the season.

THE CASE FOR PROPERLY RATED
Wisconsin Badgers at 14 makes a lot of sense if you think about it. There is a decent amount of hype around them. But they lost Jack Coan during the fall practice session. But if people do not put too much stock in Coan, this ranking makes sense. Badgers have dudes on defense that can ball out like Eric Burrell, Jack Sanborn, and others. Wisconsin is the third-highest ranked Big Ten team. They’re the top team in the Big Ten West and they only trail Penn State and Ohio State.

THE CASE FOR BEING OVERRATED
To me, there is a better case than the Wisconsin Badgers are overrated with their lack of offensive talent coming back. Graham Mertz hasn’t played a single snap. They seem to have no idea who will be their starting running back. And while they always reload at offensive line, it is going to take a few weeks for these guys to gel together.

Another reason to support the overrated case is the Big Ten has rankings bump without playing for the last six weeks. They’re basically in a bubble and they move around with other teams losing regularly. Big Ten is getting a massive advantage for the last few weeks. That can either all come down like a house of cards this weekend or make the Big Ten rise like a phoenix. Point blank, we have no proof of these teams, good or bad, so their rankings are a little inflated.

The CASE FOR BEING UNDERRATED
This is simple. Graham Mertz is the reason they could be underrated. Mertz is the most hyped quarterback at Wisconsin for a long time. This guy is supposed to be the real deal. If he is, in fact, the real deal, Wisconsin is going to be a rocketship to the top of the rankings. This is asking a lot of a player who has not started a game in his life, but we’ve seen guys rise to the occasion. The other part of the underrated case is that the defense is otherworldly and they don’t need much from the offense. We’ve seen that before with the Badgers, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if it happens again.

One week doesn’t decide any of these cases. It is probably going to be two or three weeks of games before we can form a real opinion. Mississippi State is a great example. They have this awesome game plan against LSU and everyone buys into that they might be good. Then three weeks later, they look like the worst team in the SEC not named Vanderbilt. Regardless, I’m fired up for the Big Ten to be back.

Charlie.