What Iowa and Wisconsin did against Purdue recently isn’t part of Saturday’s equation

IOWA CITY — We know it, yet we never really learn. The transitive property doesn’t apply to college football.

Roughly put for this purpose, the transitive property is if A is inferior to B and B is inferior to C, then A is inferior to C. If the Iowa River loses by 17 points to the Wabash River, and the Wabash loses by 17 to Lake Mendota, then Lake Mendota should rout the Iowa River.

Iowa lost 24-7 to Purdue on Oct. 16. Purdue lost 30-13 to Wisconsin the following Saturday. Iowa plays at Wisconsin Saturday. A blowout win for the Badgers? Possible, but highly unlikely.

“(Wisconsin) played, just watching the tape to me, pretty much flawlessly,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said Tuesday about the Badgers’ effort at Purdue, “and I think I can say the same thing about Purdue two weeks ago.

“That’s just an illustration of football. It’s not automatic. You don’t get to carry over one week to the other.”

That said, the contrast between the two games involving Purdue was sharper than seven-year-old Wisconsin cheddar.

Purdue gained 463 yards against Iowa, 206 against Wisconsin. Iowa rushed for 76 yards and 2.5 yards per carry against Purdue. Wisconsin rushed for 290 and 5.7 a pop against the Boilermakers.

Purdue averaged 8.8 yards per pass attempt against the Hawkeyes, 5.8 against the Badgers. Purdue rushed for 86 yards against Iowa, minus-13 against Wisconsin, primarily because Wisconsin sacked Boilermaker quarterbacks six times as opposed to Iowa doing it once.

David Bell had 11 receptions for a Kinnick Stadium-record 240 yards against Iowa. He was 6 for 33 against the Badgers, with no catch for more than 10 yards. Wisconsin double-teamed him all game.

“We're going to see that a lot this season,” Purdue Coach Jeff Brohm said. “We didn't see that very much at Iowa, for whatever reason."

Purdue dominated Iowa. Wisconsin dominated Purdue. Does it translate to Wisconsin dominating Iowa? When both teams have stout defenses, and neither have offenses you could describe as multidimensional?

“We mirror each other,” said Iowa running back Tyler Goodson. “That’s what’s so great about the game. Those guys are physical. It’s going to be a great game overall.”

“They do what they do, kind of like our defense,” Hawkeye tight end Sam LaPorta said. “Nothing extremely fancy, but they’re very good at what they do.”

Last Dec. 12, Iowa’s season-finale was a 28-7 home win over the Badgers. It was the Hawkeyes’ first win over Wisconsin in five meetings, and their first convincing win over the Badgers in over a decade.

In the five meetings between 2015 and 2019, which includes Iowa’s 10-6 win in Madison in ‘15, the Hawkeyes were outgained by an average of 158.6 yards per game.

In the four Wisconsin wins, Corey Clement rushed for 134 yards in the first, and Jonathan Taylor ran for 157, 113 and 250 in the other three.

Last year, Wisconsin was wracked with injuries, and had as much trouble with the COVID-19 situation as any Big Ten team. That wasn’t a typical Badgers offense that managed but 56 yards against Iowa.

Today? Braelon Allen has three consecutive 100-yard rushing games, and he’s the No. 2 running back behind Chez Mellusi. Allen is 6-foot-2, 240 pounds, and he’s 17 years old!

“If you look at their depth chart from last year,” Ferentz said, “the running back position last year versus this year, you’ve got three new names. … No slight against the players that were there last year, but they've really done a good job of addressing that position.

“If you think about Wisconsin over the last 25-plus years, (it) usually starts at the running back position. They've got somebody, you know who they are or you soon thereafter learn who they are.”

These two teams know each other oh so well. X can get walloped by Y, Y can get pounded by Z, and yet the X-Z matchup is a clean slate. That slate probably won’t get marked up with too many points.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com