Predicting Penn State Football’s colossal week 1 matchup at Wisconsin

Penn State Football opens up their 2021 season today in Wisconsin set for a high noon kickoff on Fox.

Get Up, Penn State Football nation. It’s Game Day.

On the surface, Penn State Football traveling to visit a 12th ranked Wisconsin team, with the return of full capacity crowds for the first time since 2019 is less then ideal.

However, Penn State Football head coach James Franklin said this week that with the big conference game set for week one, they have had a countdown clock with the Badgers moving “W” up all offseason, and it provides an opportunity for this team to prove last season’s 4-5 record was an outlier.

The fans will be “jumping around” and should make for a hostile environment that some key members of this Nittany Lions squad have never experienced. One player who has experienced it is quarterback Sean Clifford, who many think the buck stops and starts with with this team, and although true, this game will be one at the line of scrimmage.

Penn State Football was already troublingly thin at defensive end before the news of Adisa Isaac would miss the entire season due to injury. This is a defensive front that already lost Oweh and Toney to the NFL, so it is an unknown unit going into a game with a team in Wisconsin, who although may not have their traditional type of offensive line, is going to be very stout up front.

The challenge for Penn State Football will be holding up against the ground game and not allowing Wisconsin to set up the play action pass off of that, making things easy for a quarterback in Graham Mertz who is a question mark in his own  right.

Offensively the Nittany Lions need to spread Wisconsin out and showcase this new offense, and fast. Getting ahead of the chains and using the pass to set up the run will be crucial. Second and 3rd and shorts will make life on Clifford and this offensive line much easier against an elite Wisconsin defense that ranked fifth in the nation last season.

It’s prediction time, and this is as tough as an opener as it gets. On the road, hostile environment, but Penn State Football is the more talented team here. This game comes down the their wideouts getting separation and hitting on some big plays against a suspect Wisconsin secondary. This will be tight, so pack your nitroglycerin pills, but Penn State Football makes a statement in week one.

Prediction: Penn State Football 27, Wisconsin 20