Football
Coming off a shutout win against Rutgers, No. 25 Wisconsin (3-1 Big Ten, 6-2 overall) will take on Purdue (1-4, 3-6) in another road game Nov. 8. Head coach Gary Andersen is looking forward to the challenge.
“Offensively they will be aggressive, stack the box, and plan on playing a physical brand of football,” Andersen said. “We’ll go on the road again and [be] excited about it.”
Andersen views the Boilermakers’ offense as a unit that could cause some problems for the defense.
“There is a lot of defenses in this league that I’ve learned to truly respect,” Andersen said. “One of those would be Minnesota and the other would definitely be Michigan State … Purdue played well offensively against both those teams.”
With the defense ranked No. 1 in the nation in total yards allowed, there are many questions about how the defense is able to do so well.
“Anytime a coach is successful he’s got some good players with him that buy into his system, and the beliefs of what the defense is trying it get done as a whole,” Andersen said.
He was also asked about the injury concerns of Alex Erickson and Melvin Gordon coming out of last week’s game.
“I don’t know the time frame on Alex, honestly. I just expect him to play,” Andersen said. “If we were going to play a game tonight at 6 p.m., Melvin would be full steam ahead ready to go with no problems.”
Volleyball
After another good week with wins over Purdue and Indiana, Wisconsin (11-1 Big Ten, 20-2 overall) was able to extend its consecutive sets-won streak to 25 and its overall match win streak to 11. Head coach Kelly Sheffield had mixed feelings about the two games during the week.
“One of our better efforts of the season at their place. The entire team played really well,” Sheffield said about the Purdue game. “Few nights later at Indiana, I’m not sure we had quite the same effort.”
The Badgers will be playing Michigan next, who has a star player in Abby Cole. Sheffield was asked about having to see her twice in the next 10 days.
“She is legit, and she’s grown a lot. She is a big time competitor,” Sheffield said. “When you get a player that everybody knows where it’s going, and they’re still performing at a high level that’s pretty cool.”
Sheffield was asked if it is hard to make improvements when the team has won 25 straight sets. “You know, the Indiana match, we had a lot of things. We just didn’t play really well,” Sheffield said. “They’re spending a lot of time and finding our weaknesses and you can tell that. You try to stay one step ahead. That’s kind of what we’re doing.”
Men’s hockey
After four straight losses, the Badgers (0-4-0 overall) look to get their first win of the season this weekend against the No. 2 team in the nation, North Dakota. Head coach Mike Eaves has had two weeks to get his team ready for this weekend.
“The weeks have been good,” Eaves said. “It’s been a grind. There’s been a lot of battles. I know they’re anxious to play against somebody else at this point.”
Eaves was asked about the lack of scoring from the team and how the young guys have handled that.
“Who was going to pick it up, and up to this point we haven’t found that answer,” Eaves said. “One thing that probably not a lot of people know is that Adam Rockwood had a goal and two assists, multiple?point person and was a freshman.”
The rivalry between North Dakota and Wisconsin was brought up in a question to Eaves.
“Well, I think it’s important to keep them on the schedule,” he said. “We want to stay in contact because I think they’re always going to be an elite program and you want to test yourselves against that.”
Eaves also had to answer a question about the situation at goaltender. Senior Joel Rumpel has started three games and allowed eight goals, while senior Landon Peterson also started a game and allowed one goal.
“I think if you talk to Joel Rumpel, I think he would be disappointed,” Eaves said. “I think that if you talked to Petey, it’s been standard Petey.”
