USC Trojans and Wisconsin Badgers

Depth and a bit of inexperience at the heart of the offensive line could mar the No. 25 USC Trojans (8-5) as they aim for a second straight Holiday Bowl victory when facing the Wisconsin Badgers (9-3) Wednesday night at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. Badgers players said that didn’t change much for them when preparing for Auburn’s defense, and they’ll treat USC’s situation the same way.

The USC football team will enter the Holiday Bowl against Wisconsin without a couple of key players due to injury, including Tre Madden and Kevon Seymour.

With a highly anticipated slate of New Year’s Six bowl games nearing closer, there are many other games still worth watching. Although Kessler has “cooled” off as of late, he started off the season with three or more touchdowns in the first four games including five scoring tosses against Arizona State. Junior Justin Davis has rushed for 875 and averaged 6.1 yards per carry and 108.0 per game in the last five.

147.2- The average amount of rushing yards conceded by the USC defense this season.

The Wisconsin Badgers (9-3) are looking for another bowl game victory.

USC coach Clay Helton took over for Steve Sarkisian on an interim basis on October 11th, and the Trojans went on to finish 5-2 in their next seven games, which was good enough for Sarkisian to get the permanent job on November 30th.

The Badgers and Trojans have squared off six times in the career history between the two teams, and each time the Trojans have prevailed. Kessler is ranked 21st in the country in passing yards and 13th in passing touchdowns with 28.

Banner started all of 2014, but freshman Chuma Edoga will take over at right tackle.

Smith, also the Pac-12 Defensive Freshman of the Year, will not play against the Badgers after suffering a season-ending knee injury at Colorado.

USC visited the San Diego Zoo on Sunday afternoon, which was more exciting for the freshmen, who did not visit the zoo during last year’s Holiday Bowl. Perhaps the one standout Wisconsin will have to continue within all facets of the game is a three-way star (CB/WR/RET) Adoree’ Jackson.

Wisconsin’s offense is led by QB Joel Stave, who has guided the Badgers to 30 wins in his career and is second in school history in career passing yards, TD passes, completions and attempts.

The adversity and disappointment surrounding the University of Wisconsin football team’s season can not even compare to Southern California.

The Badgers top the nation in scoring defense (13.1), and are second in pass efficiency defense (95.12), third in total yards allowed (267.1), fourth against the rush (97.9) and sixth in defending the pass (169.2).

For the first time since 2004, Wisconsin likely won’t have a 1,000-yard rusher with Dare Ogunbowale leading the team with 769.

“We know we’ll have a challenging opponent in Wisconsin”, Helton said.

UW defensive coordinator Dave Aranda excels at mixing up blitz packages on passing downs and has outside linebackers Joe Schobert and Vince Biegel at his disposal to try to get after Kessler.