Iowa vs. Wisconsin football is too primal for prime time

This game was made for 11 a.m.

No Iowa-Wisconsin football matchup should be staged in prime-time. This is something to be cleansed from a palate, not served after dinner. This isn’t what America wants or needs as a national game. This is the kind of game that makes you want to see more successful offense immediately after it’s over.

Don’t be offended, Hawkeye and Badger people. Your traveling trophy is a bull, not a deer or antelope. Iowa calls itself Tight Ends U, not Wide Receivers U.

Saturday night, America gets Ole Miss at Auburn on ESPN, North Carolina at Notre Dame on NBC, and Penn State at Ohio State on ABC. The football will move forward in those games, and quite often.

Touchdowns won’t be harder to come by than a royal flush, unicorn, or trick-or-treater dressed as Chuck Grassley.

You can rhapsodize about two dominant defenses playing smash-mouth football. Songs have been written about far less. When those defenses are facing offenses ranked 90th (Wisconsin) and 120th (Iowa) in the nation, however, you have a chess match instead of a video game.

When the defensive strategy of an opponent is to stop the run and dare you to beat it by passing, your offense isn’t Alabama’s or Ohio State’s. Or even Nebraska’s.

But, you play to your strengths. Outside of Michigan’s offense getting the better of Wisconsin, and Iowa’s clunker against Purdue two weeks ago, the two teams’ defenses have been way above ordinary.

Also, the punters of both sides average over 46 yards per kick. The Hawkeyes’ Tory Taylor has placed 21 punts inside the opponent’s 20-yard line, tying him for the second-most of anyone in the nation.

Of course, Taylor has more punts per game than anyone in the Big Ten, but he’s still been sensational. Wisconsin’s Andy Vujnovich is no slouch, either.

The Hawkeyes lead the Big Ten in takeaways, and are two points from tying Michigan for fewest points allowed. The Badgers are easily first in the conference in fewest total yards surrendered, and are No. 1 nationally in fewest rushing yards permitted.

“It's probably going to boil down to playing clean football,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said this week.

As taglines for games of importance go, that isn’t an all-timer. This is indeed an important game, no matter how it plays aesthetically. The victor will have as good a chance as anyone of winning the Big Ten West. In fact, Iowa will be in the driver’s seat if it brings that bull back home on the team bus.

None of which will quell the popular opinion that the Big Ten championship game is set up to be a mismatch. Ohio State was favored by 14, 15 and 18 points, respectively, in the last three league-title tilts against the West champs. It won by 21, 13 and 12.

No one operates with colder objectivity than sports books. They don’t play favorites, they just set numbers they think will get them equal play on both sides and adjust them as soon as there’s an imbalance.

Entering the weekend, the betting establishments had the over/under for total points scored in Iowa-Wisconsin at 37, four points lower than any other game in the country this week.

If that number holds by kickoff, it would match the lowest O/U of any college game this season. The other 37? That was for Army-Wisconsin two weeks ago. The “under” won, by the way, as it did in the nation’s three other lowest over/unders of the year.

The average over/under number for a Wisconsin game this season is 43.2. For Iowa, it’s 44.6. For Ohio State, it’s 63.3.

How would I know such things, you may wonder. It’s what happens when you go too far trying to distance yourself from the “Two physical teams who know each other so well” storyline you’ve heard since Hayden Fry’s Hawkeyes battled Barry Alvarez’s Badgers.

Yes, they’re physical. It’s major-college football. Everyone has toughness. And yes, the Hawkeyes and Badgers know each other quite well. Being in the same division and squaring off every year will do that.

But while the Hawkeyes and their fans have little trouble dialing up disdain for Minnesota and Nebraska, they show Wisconsin nothing but respect.

Who, after all, spits at their own image when looking at their mirror image?

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