Could the Badgers shock teams in 2025?
The Wisconsin Badgers are on to the summer after their month-long spring ball program, taking the next step to seeing the field in 2025.
After a disappointing 2024 season that saw them not qualify for a bowl game, the Badgers fully revamped their roster this offseason, hitting the transfer portal hard, especially on the defensive side of the ball.
Now, they’ll look to put together a better 2025 season, but have a grueling schedule in front of them. In fact, ESPN’s Bill Connelly’s SP+ projections have the Badgers with the fourth-hardest strength of schedule in the country this season. That ranks behind only Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Florida, which all play in the SEC.
But, where do the Badgers rank overall in the SP+ projections? Let’s take a look.
First off, here is what Connelly’s SP+ preseason projections are based on:
1) Returning production. The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as humanly possible to account for transfers and attrition. The combination of last year’s SP+ ratings and adjustments based on returning production makes up about two-thirds of the projections formula.
2) Recent recruiting. This piece informs us of the caliber of a team’s potential replacements (and/or new stars) in the lineup. It is determined by the past few years of recruiting rankings in diminishing order (meaning the most recent class carries the most weight). This is also impacted by the recruiting rankings of incoming transfers, an acknowledgment that the art of roster management is now heavily dictated by the transfer portal.
3) Recent history. Using a sliver of information from the previous four seasons or so gives us a good measure of overall program health.
Connelly also added a side note that his projections are efficiency-based, not a resume ranking, especially at this point in the year.
“One other reminder: SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency,” Connelly wrote. “It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and along those lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather.”
Based on these factors, Wisconsin is surprisingly ranked 37th overall in the SP+ projections. That is ranked 10th in the Big Ten behind Ohio State, Penn State, Oregon, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, USC, and Nebraska.
Looking further, their defense is ranked 24th in the country, while their offense is near average at 73rd in the country. Furthermore, their special teams unit is also ranked 70th in the country, giving them the 37th-best team in the nation according to the SP+ projections.
However, given the strength of schedule, Wisconsin is projected to win only 5.2 games in 2025.
How do you feel about the Badgers? Are they a top-40 team in the nation?