Help me out here if you know anything about the Wisconsin players and matchups.
One thing you can say about them is they've played a tougher schedule than PSU. They've lost to the good teams, beaten the bad teams. They may have played their best game of the season handling NW but NW doesn't have much going on this year. Blew out Rutgers but the bottom has dropped out for RU so that may not mean much. Beaten soundly by USC -- USC outscored them 28-0 in the 2nd half (game was at USC). Lost to Alabama.
Passing yards per completion, PSU ranks 12th, WI 68th, but they have played better teams so that may not mean much.
Scoring defense, WI ranks 18th in the country. That may mean something. IL ranks 22nd and that's probably the best defense PSU has seen. (PSU ranks 9th by the way, but again, hasn't played the kind of teams Wisconsin has played). PSU's 10th in Rushing D, Wisconsin 61st, again see schedule.
Sacks allowed, PSU ranks 16th, WI 30th. Rushing offense, PSU 25th, Wisconsin 35. Turnover margin, Wisky ranks 101 bc they've lost 7 fumbles and 5 Ints. (PSU is middle of the pack in TO margin). But you could turn that around to mean, maybe Wisky would have won a couple more games if they hadn't fumbled so much. Still, I bet PSU is emphasizing forcing fumbles this week.
Team tackles for loss: PSU is 30th, Wisky only 120th. So they do not have a D-line that gets a lot of penetration and/or not a lot of blitzing. That may be style of play if they're playing a relatively passive BBDB kind of scheme. Still, that looks like one potential area of opportunity for PSU.
I really don't know what the WI players to watch are. Reportedly a good secondary, great safety (though they only rank 106th in interceptions -- PSU is only 69th), good running backs. Their QB looked good against Rutgers but he was under no pressure, so who knows.
All in all I would guess a pretty similar game to Illinois. Tougher in that it will be an away game, but Illinois may have better athletes in a few places and a very good QB. PSU has done well in recent years against Wisconsin -- they've usually won with speed and explosive plays. But this year, with this offensive line and Kotelnicki's running schemes, they might be able to play bully ball a little bit too.
