Let's Take A Deep Breath, Badger Fans

Let's just tap the brakes a little on the upcoming season, Wisconsin Badger fans. That's not just my opinion, but one Head Coach Paul Chryst is pretty strong on. He's been telling his squad to ignore the hype, and for good reason.

Wisconsin is highly ranked in the pre-season polls, yes. For example, Athlon has the Badgers 9th, Sports Illustrated puts them 3rd.

But those rankings are, by and large, pretty bogus. If given the magic wand, I would wave it and ban ALL polls until the first week of October. Let teams get some games behind them before judging.

I'm not raining on the parade, here, just being a realist. Granted, Wisconsin returns 9 of 11 offensive starters (losing TE Troy Fumigali and FB Austin Ramesh, an unsung hero in the team's 13-1 season). The entire O-Line has returned, which bodes well for RB Jonathan Taylor and QB Alex Hornibrook.

This an offense just plain loaded. It may well be superior to the team Russell Wilson led.

But then we look on the other side of the line, where Defensive Coordinator lost 8 starters. That means a new-look defensive backfield, inexperience at linebacker and a green defensive line.

The young guys MUST step up if Chryst (34-7 in 3 years, a winning percentage of  82.93%) is to continue on his very successful path.

As an aside, the Badgers caught flack last season for having BYU on the schedule. Schedules are set so far in advance that, who knows how strong (or weak) a team might be. For example, earlier this year Georgia Southern scheduled a one-off game with Wisconsin for the 2023 season. They're a Sun Belt Conference team, so another softie put on the schedule along with Buffalo (MAC member). Both of those squads will get a big payday for coming to Camp Randall.

The only possible strong non-conference foe is Washington State of the Pac-12 -- and again, who knows how good or bad that school will be five years from now.