Last season’s Wisconsin Badgers were one of the most overrated Power Five teams in recent college football history.
They started the 2018 campaign ranked No. 4 in the nation. They ended the regular season 7-5, with four of those five losses coming by double digits (38-10 at Michigan, 31-17 at Northwestern, 22-10 at Penn State, and 37-15 versus Minnesota) in results that missed the market by a combined 71 points.
But, hey, they bullied hapless Miami in the Pinstripe Bowl, so the Badgers entered the 2019 season ranked a respectable No. 19 in the nation despite returning only three starters on offense and five on defense.
Wisconsin has risen to No. 13 two games into the new season, the result of 61-0 and 49-0 cupcake crushers over Central Michigan and South Florida.
A real test looms early Saturday in Madison, Wis., against 11th-ranked Big Ten rival Michigan (noon, Fox).
Handicapping and betting Big Ten games has become particularly troublesome for recreational bettors. This league is hyped. It has major TV contracts with Fox and ESPN. Their corporate partners aren’t particularly interested in telling you how overrated many of its contenders are, even after having televised Wisconsin (-23¹/₂) losing outright to BYU last year, or Michigan (-21¹/₂) going overtime with Army two Saturdays ago (the Wolverines’ sixth straight non-cover).
How should you bet when overrated or inconsistent teams play each other? How do you recognize when a team finds itself and becomes a true force? Frankly, Wisconsin actually has impressed in its early blowouts, beating the market by 39 and 27 points. Maybe the new talent is much better than the seniors that got flushed out. (Michigan has missed the spread by 17 and 21¹/₂ in regulation thus far.)
Some tips:
— Review straight-up and point-spread performances for head coaches. The players may change, but coaching strengths and weaknesses usually hold firm. Paul Chryst has been at Wisconsin four seasons, and a major college coach for seven. What’s his track record in big games? Has Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh lost his touch in recent years?
— Pass on early-season testers so you can pick winners down the road. Bettors will learn more about Wisconsin on Saturday afternoon than from anything that happened against South Florida (which lost to Georgia Tech, which lost to the Citadel) and Central Michigan.
— Respect the market. If sharps are hitting one team particularly hard, that’s the result of informed talent and situational analysis from the best in the business. This could be very important in Michigan-Wisconsin. Summer “advance” lines showed Michigan a road favorite at -5¹/₂ (suggesting the Wolverines were about 8-9 points better on a neutral field). This week, openers near Wisconsin -2¹/₂ or -3 have been bet up above the key number to -3¹/₂.
That’s a big adjustment for so few games. But it seems important market influences liked what they saw from the Badgers so far, and decided Michigan is no longer on the short list of true playoff threats.