After defeating Ohio State for the third-straight time in Columbus, the Badgers are 6-0 for the third time since 1912.
If the Badgers want to go 7-0, they must beat No. 5 Purdue, arguably the strongest offensive team in the Big Ten. To make matters more challenging, the Boilermakers, in the past seven years, are a perfect 7-0 on their Homecoming.
After holding Ohio State to only 49 yards in total offense in the second half of Saturday’s game, Wisconsin’s No. 1-ranked defense (198.3 yards per game) looks to shut down the potent Purdue passing offense, which ranks third in the nation in offense with 509 yards per game. Led by a Heisman trophy candidate, quarterback Kyle Orton, Purdue has scored an average of 41.8 points per game, which is fourth best in the nation.
Coach Alvarez spoke about the problems that Purdue’s offense presents.
“Purdue gives us a number of formations, and if you look at their stats, they are fairly balanced,” Alvarez said. “This is the best team — by far the best team — we have played, with the leading contender for the Heisman trophy running their offense…and a defense that’s probably the biggest surprise with their team. As many guys that they have lost to the draft and as good as their defense was a year ago, this outfit has come in and put up pretty impressive numbers.”
The Rise of Stocco
After passing for only 660 yards and three touchdowns in his first five games, John Stocco finally had his breakout game. Stocco completed 15 of 24 passes for 160 yards and two key touchdown passes, leading the Badgers to victory. For Stocco and coach Alvarez, it is a huge steppingstone going into West Lafayette to play Purdue.
“That was a very tough environment of 105,000 people,” Alvarez said. “It was a loud crowd, [the crowd was] very into the game against a very good team…They were going to make John Stocco win the game and make us throw the football, and he responded. He got the ball down the field, he knew where to go with the ball, he didn’t turn it over one time, he didn’t run the clock out on the 25 second delay, put the ball where it needed to be, had some key third down conversions, and he did all the things that you had to do to win…It was a huge steppingstone for him.”
Heisman vs. Heisman
Not only will the top two teams in the Big Ten square off this Saturday, but two of the most dominate players will try to raise their stock — Wisconsin’s Anthony Davis and Purdue’s Kyle Orton. Despite missing three and a half games, Davis has rushed for 465 yards and five touchdowns. For his career, Davis has rushed for 4,162 yards, which places him ninth on the Big Ten career rushing list. With Davis averaging 190.5 yards and scoring four touchdowns in his last two games, coach Alvarez thinks that Davis should be considered for the Heisman trophy.
“Davis should be considered for the Heisman,” Alvarez said. “We had a lot of season left and if he continues to play as he has played and put the kind of numbers, consistent numbers, with the type of schedule we have, I think he should be mentioned in the same group.”
Even though Davis is a Heisman hopeful, all eyes are on Purdue’s quarterback Kyle Orton to be one of the finalists for the award. This season, Orton has passed for 1,642 yards and 18 touchdowns, which is tops in the nation. Orton is among the top five in Purdue’s career passing leaders in career attempts, completions, completion percentage, passing yards, touchdowns and total offense and has received comparison to one of Purdue’s greatest quarterbacks, Drew Brees.
“They are very similar,” Alvarez said. “Obviously, they were both very effective, but the thing I was so impressed with [Drew] Brees was how accurate he was and [Kyle] Orton is certainly the same way. Brees was surprisingly mobile, even when you did get somebody to him, we couldn’t get him down and we couldn’t catch him. When you go back and watch last year’s film with Orton, we had times when we just weren’t athletic enough to catch him and get a first down by a yard. I think there a lot of similarities between the two.”
