Wisconsin QB Alex Hornibrook available for Big Ten championship

The yardage and TD passes were both Big Ten championship game records.

“After that game, whatever the powers that be decide, we’ll be happy and excited for whatever that opportunity is”, Franklin said. Limiting Wisconsin’s running game will be huge.

But it wasn’t just the big scoring plays. It could become a sad reality. The Nittany Lions continued to push the tempo, and it worked against the Raiders as they came away with the 72-50 victory. The Badgers will have little success if they can’t get after McSorley and limit his time in the pocket.

“Many of the tickets for the Big Ten Championship are traditional, hard stock tickets”, Slingland said on Thursday.

“We’ll see where Alex kind of finishes out this week”, Chryst said.

Neither of these coaches were supposed to be up on this dais on Friday, the Big Ten championship trophy standing between them. Certainly, name-recognition had a lot to do with it.

-Ira Miller is an award-winning sportswriter who has covered the National Football League for more than five decades and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee. The Bears and Horned Frogs were better than Ohio State all season.

Redshirt senior Bart Houston will start at quarterback on Saturday night for the No. 6 Wisconsin Badgers in the Big Ten Championship Game against No. 7 Penn State.

It was a no-brainer for the selection committee. They have tightened up in the later part of the season, allowing just 66.8 yards per game on the ground in their last five games. Kerry Collins (1994), Michael Robinson (2005) and Daryll Clark (2009) brought home the honor, which has been voted on by Big Ten coaches since 1924. “I understand we were 2-2 at the time”. The Buckeyes are still the Buckeyes. Both Washington and Clemson are one loss teams, should they both win Wisconsin will be left on the outside looking in, and deservedly so. However, the Badgers were forced into a 4th-and-1 situation on the Penn State 24-yard line with 1:04 remaining, and the Nittany Lions stacked up Wisconsin running back Corey Clement at the line of scrimmage to preserve what looked to be an unthinkable victory. They aren’t Baylor. They aren’t Stanford. Wisconsin is 9-2-1 against the spread and 7-5 with the under while Penn State is 8-3-1 against the spread and 9-3 with the over.

Currently, the Nittany Lions’ eight game winning streak is the longest in the Big Ten.

Wisconsin won the Big Ten West with a record of 10-2 for its fourth trip to the title game in six seasons. Only defeats to MI and Ohio State have prevented Wisconsin from having an unblemished record.

Any drama or complications that could have come with figuring out which Group of Five champion will get a bid to the Cotton Bowl ended with Temple beating Navy 34-10 in the American Athletic conference championship game.

Barkley, who rushed for 83 yards on 19 carries, also scored on a 1-yard run. Clement’s production has helped the Badgers average 201.5 rushing yards per game. If the Nittany Lions have to crush the Badgers to get in the College Football Playoff, their chances are slim.

The Nittany Lions cut a 14-0 deficit in half when McSorley launched a pass into the end zone, where the 6-foot-6 Gesicki outjumped 6-foot cornerback Lubern Figaro and hauled it in for a 33-yard score with 1:10 left in the first quarter.

The Badgers responded, but only with three points.