3-2-1: Wisconsin overwhelms South Florida in shutout victory
TAMPA - An impressive showing kickstarted the 2019 season for the No. 19 Wisconsin Badgers on Friday night as they tamed the South Florida Bulls, 49-0, inside Raymond James Stadium. UW starts it all back up this week leading up to Saturday's non-conference match-up against Central Michigan.
BadgerBlitz.com brings back our 3-2-1 feature to examine what other observations we took away from Wisconsin's win, two questions posed after Friday's performance and one bold, early prediction for this week's matchup.
*Note: BadgerBlitz.com already published a "Five things we learned" post on Saturday morning. These are more observations so not to add redundancy.
THREE THINGS WE LEARNED
1. After this week's slate of games, Wisconsin road win against USF looks even better
There are obvious things for Wisconsin to work on heading into its Week 2 home opener against Central Michigan. However, looking at what happened in Week 1 for Big Ten West and other Power 5 teams, the Badgers' win on the road against the Bulls just feels more impressive.
Let's start within the division itself. Thursday, Minnesota looked less than impressive in during a come-from-behind win over South Dakota State. Nebraska "only" defeated South Alabama by two scores at home, Northwestern scored just seven points in a road defeat at Stanford, and Purdue coughed up a second-half lead to Nevada then lost on a 56-yard game-winning field goal.
Let's go even broader. Georgia State went into Knoxville and proceeded to defeat Tennessee. Florida State lost to Boise State at home after the game was moved to Tallahassee with Hurricane Dorian looming. Kelly Bryant's debut as a Missouri quarterback ended with an "L" as Wyoming came back from 14 points down early to stun the Tigers.
Again, it's Week 1 and there will be upsets like this. Heck, Wisconsin suffered one against BYU in the third game of last year -- which maybe makes that 2018 loss seem worse. Without a doubt to start this season, UW asserted itself on the road on a very positive note.
2. Quintez Cephus will likely have a bigger role earlier than BadgerBlitz.com expected
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