Cotton Bowl Preview: (15) Western Michigan vs. (8) Wisconsin

The college bowl season offers more opportunities for betting than your fickle heart may know what to do with. But just because you’ve never heard of the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl, it doesn’t mean you should stay away from it. Let SportsBettingDime be your guide through all of bowl season, especially the really obscure ones!

Today, we look at… 

The Bowl

Cotton Bowl (Jan. 2, 2017)

Western Michigan (+8) vs. Wisconsin

College sports features the haves and have nots. There are the schools that struggle to balance the books, then others that are making so much money, they can’t decide whether to pay the athletic director an extra million bucks or take the football team to Morton’s once again. Once a year a little guy gets a chance to challenge one of the big boys on a huge stage. This year’s lone representative in the premier bowl games outside of the Power 5 conferences is Western Michigan. In the last two years, Cinderella has won. Boise State beat Arizona in the Fiesta Bowl in 2014, and last season, Houston upset Florida State in the Peach Bowl.

The Teams

Western Michigan Broncos (13-0, 8-0 MAC)

The Broncos opened the year with two wins over Big 10 teams during the first three weeks of the campaign. They edged Northwestern 22-21, and blasted Illinois 34-10. Their only other two victories against decent teams came in the final two weeks of the year. They crushed Toledo, who went 6-2 in the MAC and won nine games this year, and then got by Ohio in the conference title game. The Bobcats also were 6-2 in league games. Western Michigan went 9-4 against the spread in 2016.

P.J. Fleck took over the Western Michigan program in 2013 after the Broncos went 22-27 over a four-year span. Western Michigan had never won a bowl game before Fleck arrived, and his first season – a 1-11 year – didn’t provide a great deal of hope for the future. However, the Broncos won eight games in 2014, falling to Air Force in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Last season, they went 8-5, and finally earned a postseason victory when they got by Middle Tennessee State in the Bahamas Bowl. Under Fleck, the Broncos are 30-21 overall, and 31-20 against the spread.

The formula for success for the Broncos has been a combination of balance and eliminating mistakes. Quarterback Zach Terrell completed nearly 71-percent of his throws this year for just under 3,400 yards, passed for 32 touchdowns, and was intercepted just three times. Their ground game gained almost 3,100 yards, with both Jarvion Franklin and Jamauri Bogan averaging over five yards a carry. The duo scored 20 total touchdowns on the ground, and the team managed 35 rushing TDs.

Wisconsin Badgers (10-3, 7-2 Big 10)

Although Ohio State is in the College Football Playoff, and Michigan was hyped up throughout the season, neither blue blood team reached the Big 10 title game. The best conference in the country this year produced Penn State and Wisconsin in the league’s championship tilt, where the Nittany Lions prevailed 38-31. That loss snapped Wisconsin’s six game winning streak.

The Badgers began the year 4-0, beating LSU 16-14 to start the season, then crushed eighth-ranked Michigan State 30-6. But they dropped one-score games mid-season to Michigan and the Buckeyes. Like Western Michigan, Wisconsin also beat Northwestern (21-7) and Illinois (48-3) during the regular season.

In his first year with the Badgers last season, coach Paul Chryst led Wisconsin to a 10-3 mark and a Holiday Bowl victory over USC. The Badgers were 6-7 against the spread. This year Wisconsin is 9-3-1 against the number. Chryst spent three seasons at Pittsburgh, compiling a 19-19 mark, and was 1-1 in bowl games. For betting purposes, Pitt was 18-18-2 during his time in the Steel City.

While Wisconsin’s offense is average – with the running game stronger than the passing attack – they win thanks in large part to defense. The Badgers intercepted 21 passes this season, and were +11 in turnover margin. Opponents were limited to 3.2 yards per carry on the ground, and 6.6 yards per pass. Those who faced the Wisconsin defense converted only 27-percent of third down attempts. Western Michigan has never faced the type of challenge the Badgers’ defense presents.

The Play

Wisconsin (-8)

While we love Cinderella stories, and it’s great to see the little guy get a chance, this is a real mismatch. Western Michigan dominated a bad conference, and didn’t even have to play on the road against the best competition in the MAC. Beating Northwestern is fine, but Wisconsin did that too, and much more convincingly.

The Badgers are not flashy, but they won the games they were supposed to, and played competitively against some of the best squads in the country. Their defense will limit and frustrate the Broncos. Taking the Badgers is the easy call.

Photo credit: Stefan Ogrisek (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/]