The 12-Pac Blog

Oregon and Wisconsin both have incredible offenses but the winner of the Rose Bowl will be the team whose defense makes the most stops. I see a high scoring game that will likely make folks think of the battles between Michigan State and Wisconsin this year more than say last night’s Alamo Bowl. Look for Oregon to score quickly and Wisconsin to score on longer drives. The key question will be if Oregon’s defense is too winded to stop Wisconsin from scoring late in the game. I’d compare Wisconsin’s offense to a Stanford’s though with much better skill position players. Obviously Oregon blew out the Trees but the Ducks won’t have as large of a speed advantage and it should keep the game closer. The Badger’s QB Russell Wilson will have A class wideouts compared to the C level guys Stanford was throwing out there. Oregon will need to bring pressure on Wilson or he will pick apart the young Duck corners on play action as I see the Ducks attempting a lot of selling out to the run early. On the other side of the ball I think Wisconsin has some major questions defensively. They have a lot of size on defense but size isn’t the best defense against Oregon on the edges. The Badger linebackers will need to make tackles in space – if they don’t look for a bunch of explosion plays from LMJ, Kenjon Barner, Huff and DAT. If Oregon can score early and often Wisconsin will lose both the chance to have Ball kill clock and keep Oregon’s defense on the field for long sustained drives plus Wilson will not have the play action in his arsenal. He is deadly on play action just like Andrew Luck and the Ducks were able to shut him down for the most part as they forced him to throw almost every play in the final three quarters. Watch Oregon carefully there first few drives – is DT throwing accurate balls and are the wideouts making catches? If so this game could get ugly fast. If Oregon is not crisp and has a case of the drops like what happened against USC Wisconsin will be in the game all day and has a great chance to win if they can establish the run early. Oregon wins their first Rose Bowl since 1917 (is there a single Duck fan who remembers that game still alive?) by a score of 38 to 31.