Wisconsin survived an unlikely scare with Georgia State on Saturday with a 23-17 victory. The 35-point underdog took the lead at one point in the fourth quarter, but Wisconsin found a way to persevere and pull it out to avoid an embarrassing loss.

Can’t assume anything is a given
Wisconsin’s entire team underestimated Georgia State. From the coaches to the last player on the bench believed this would be a walk in the park. Panthers lost to Air Force and Ball State by double-digits already this season. Wisconsin’s cavalier approach with Corey Clement was the right one, but it hurt them when Taiwan Deal went out with an injury then Bradrick Shaw couldn’t hold on the football. Wisconsin played with their JV squad and nearly got burned for doing it. Simply put, Wisconsin isn’t a good enough team to do that shit. Ohio State, Michigan and a few others can do that but not Wisconsin.

Alex Hornibrook looks legit against lesser competition
I’m not ready to fire up the Alex Hornibrook hype train, but he looked damn good out there. Hornibrook found open receivers countless times and made a couple tough passes. He threw one interception, but that had little to do with him. It’s still not worth too much excitement until we see him against better competition. Jeff Potrykus reports Hornibrook will be the starter on Saturday at East Lansing against Michigan State. I’m a little surprised Hornibrook gets the direct nod. I sort of expected Bart Houston to be the starter for one or two drives then go to Hornibrook if things go to shit.

Sloppy effort from all phases of the game.
There weren’t many things to be happy about in this game if you’re Paul Chryst. They had all sorts of problems on offense. Defense looked good for the most part, but there were some major holes in the secondary as we saw from Glenn Smith and Robert Davis both having big-time receptions in the second half. Rafael Gaglianone missed one short field goal and nearly missed another one. It looked so ugly from the start of the game until the final whistle. Wisconsin’s LSU hangover happened two weeks later instead of last week versus Akron.

Jack Cichy was an animal, again.
Even though most of team played poorly, Jack Cichy did not. He had himself quite the ball game with eight solo tackles with one tackle for loss. He along with T.J. Edwards look great together especially in the run. Wisconsin is completely loaded at linebackers with Edwards, Cichy, Vince Biegel and T.J. Watt. It’s hard to find a better linebacker group in the country.

Big Ten gauntlet expectations
Wisconsin has five straight tough games in the next six weeks. If they go 3-2 in those five games, Wisconsin should be in position to win the Big Ten West. It starts with Michigan State who they always have classics with.

Charlie.