Why 2023 is the Year Wisconsin Football Takes Down Ohio State

Whether you admit it or not, it’s the game you’re most excited about. The week has arrived when the Wisconsin Badgers football program hosts Ohio State at Camp Randall Stadium.

Before the season, only a few fans expected that the Badgers would be able to beat the Buckeyes in Luke Fickell’s first season as head coach. Their two losses this season being in the fashion in which they have likely haven’t helped the confidence of those fans.

So far this week, most of the talk has been about why Wisconsin football won’t beat Ohio State. However, I’m here to tell you why they will and why 2023 is the year that the Badgers finally take down Ohio State.

Wisconsin Football Has Home Field Advantage Against Ohio State

Since Wisconsin’s enormous upset of the top-ranked Buckeyes in 2010, the Badgers have rarely seen the team in Madison. 2012 and 2016 are the only two occasions that the Buckeyes have had to come to town since then.

Both times, Wisconsin took Ohio State to overtime. Although both instances ended in losses for the Badgers, home-field advantage has made them competitive in the series.

It will be important that the crowd gets behind the Badgers and creates a hostile environment for the Buckeyes to enter. If that takes playing modern music to get the crowd into the game, then do it because there will be nothing more important for Wisconsin than having a raucous crowd behind them.

Braedyn Locke Showed a Tremendous Level of Poise Last Week for the Badgers

Wisconsin football looked dead in the water for three quarters against Illinois last week. Then, showing his tremendous poise, freshman quarterback Braedyn Locke almost willingly rallied the Badgers from behind to steal the win in Champaign.

After going through some of the expected growing pains of a freshman QB, in his first start, Locke showed us why Fickell, Phil Longo, and the rest of the coaching staff turned to him to play the position after the injury to Tanner Mordecai. Locke delivered two beautiful balls late in the game. First, to Will Pauling for a touchdown to cut the deficit to three, then one down the sideline to Skyler Bell on the final drive that got the Badgers inside the 10 to set up a game-winning touchdown pass to Nolan Rucci with 27 seconds to play.

Undoubtedly, the young signal caller won’t be able to struggle for three quarters for the Badgers to reign victorious against a team as talented as Ohio State. Nonetheless, if he plays as calm and collected as he did down the stretch last week for four quarters on Saturday, Locke will give the team an excellent chance to compete with the Buckeyes.

Final Thoughts

A lot of the conversation this week, whether from Badgers fans or fans of the college football sport, has been about why the Badgers have no chance to beat the Buckeyes on Saturday. Dread it, run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. Wisconsin is going to beat Ohio State in 2023.

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