Wisconsin Badgers Handicapping Review

 

By Tom Wilkinson

 

The Wisconsin Badgers, after making three Rose Bowls between 1993 and 1998 fell a notch or two to also rans in the Big Ten Conference and contestants in minor bowl games. Wisconsin entered the 2004 season as a team that was a somewhat easy sports handicapping read. The Badgers were not a team to lay a lot of points with but a good team for a sports bettor to have on his list of football picks when the sports betting odds were smaller, or when the Badgers were installed as underdogs.

The Badgers basically held to form in their first three games of 2004 as they were installed as double digit favorites in each of their first three games, winning all of them straight up as they lost two of them against the odds.

Wisconsin then entered a four game stretch of their schedule in which they would be under their usually favorable sports handicapping position. As a small 3-point home chalk they defeated Penn State 16-3. They then went against normal form and crushed a horrible Illinois team 24-7 as 15-point home chalks. The best was yet to come, however.

At Ohio State Wisconsin was installed as 3.5-point dogs and won straight up 24-13, which shocked many of the bloggers at online sports betting boards who previously touted Ohio State as a bargain. In their next game, as 7-point dogs at Purdue, Wisconsin turned the trick again with a 20-17 win. The Badgers now stood with an overall record to 7-0 straight up and 5-2 against the odds. At this stage of the season Wisconsin was ranked in the top ten, considered a Bowl Championship Series contender, and being praised for their suffocating defense both in the media and at online sports betting blogs, as the general sports betting public was beginning to believe in Bucky Badger, which was a sure sign of trouble.

Despite plentiful sports handicapping data that warned against it, many sports bettors had Wisconsin on their lists of football picks as 12.5-point home chalks against Northwestern. Wisky won 24-12 issuing a painful bad beat and reminder to those defying the trends. The Badgers lost three of their final four regular season games against the odds, as their value was left on the field at Purdue. Wisky was not taken seriously by the time they met Georgia as 7-point dogs in the Outback bowl, but covered in a 21-24 loss staying in sports handicapping form yet again.