{"id":17683,"date":"2011-09-13T22:15:50","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T03:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=17683"},"modified":"2011-09-13T17:19:09","modified_gmt":"2011-09-13T22:19:09","slug":"ncaa-football-picks-wisconsin-badgers-vs-northern-illinois-huskies-inside-soldier-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-football-picks-wisconsin-badgers-vs-northern-illinois-huskies-inside-soldier-field-17683\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Football Picks: Wisconsin Badgers vs. Northern Illinois Huskies Inside Soldier Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 7 Wisconsin Badgers vs. Northern Illinois Huskies
\nSaturday, 9\/17\/11, 3:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN3
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Wisconsin -16.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Wisconsin -16.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 60
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 63.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Wisconsin Badgers take on their old defensive coordinator Saturday inside Soldier Field<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wisconsin is a legitimate contender to win the national championship and will put its streak of winning 30-straight regular-season non-conference games on the line.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m very excited about Northern Illinois,\u201d stated Badgers head coach Brett Bielema.\u00a0 \u201cI know our kids are excited about the challenge.\u201d\u00a0 The team will be facing its defensive coordinator from a year ago and also playing inside Soldier Field in Chicago.\u00a0 Wisconsin\u2019s stop unit has impressed early on without its former coordinator, including a 35-0 shutout win over Oregon State last week.\u00a0 Over the last two-plus season, the program is 10-4 ATS after two or more consecutive wins.<\/p>\n

The Badgers offense continues to play at an extremely high level and is one of seven units that is averaging at least 220 yards rushing and receiving in the nation through two weeks.\u00a0 Wisconsin received a gift in transfer Russell Wilson from NC State, entering with the highest passing efficiency rating in the country.\u00a0 He has accounted for 517 yards of total offense on 40 plays, which has averaged out to 12.9 yards a play, currently second-best nationally.\u00a0 He trails only Houston\u2019s Case Keenum and Boise State\u2019s Kellen Moore in most career touchdowns passes for an active quarterback.<\/p>\n

Northern Illinois dropped a heartbreaking 45-42 loss in Kansas last week, but also has an explosive option behind center.\u00a0 Chandler Harnish dazzled in completing 27-of-33 passes for 315 yards and two touchdowns, while also rushing for 89 yards and three more scores.\u00a0 It was an unbelievable performance that ended up not being enough due to a defensive unit that allowed 534 yards.\u00a0 \u201cThey made one more play than we did tonight,\u201d commented head coach Dave Doeren after the game.\u00a0 \u201cOur defense didn\u2019t get off the field on third down.\u201d\u00a0 Northern Illinois is 4-0 ATS in its last four games versus Big Ten competition.<\/p>\n

The Huskies are certainly going to rely on Harnish\u2019s talents heading into the biggest game of the season, as he also scored six combined touchdowns in a season-opening victory over Army.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to be much tougher against the Badgers to amass video game-type statistic, as they\u2019ve held both of their opponents to under 300 yards of total offense.\u00a0 Northern Illinois also trails in this series, 1-11, but four of the last five meetings have been decided by eight points or less.\u00a0 Both teams enter the game with high-scoring offenses, but only once has a team scored over 40 points in the series.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Huskies due to their 4-1 ATS mark as underdogs of 10.5 or more points, while the Badgers are 3-6 ATS in September contests.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the college football handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No. 7 Wisconsin Badgers vs. Northern Illinois Huskies Saturday, 9\/17\/11, 3:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN3 Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Wisconsin -16.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Wisconsin -16.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 60 Current Total:\u00a0 63.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Wisconsin is a legitimate contender to win the national championship and will put its streak of winning 30-straight regular-season non-conference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":16549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[5432,2667,3630,5431,437],"class_list":["post-17683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-chandler-harnish","tag-northern-illinois-huskies","tag-russell-wilson","tag-soldier-field","tag-wisconsin-badgers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17683"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17685,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17683\/revisions\/17685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}