On this week's Podcast Ain't Played Nobody with guest host Holly Anderson, I briefly teased what I thought I would be writing about as a preview of Saturday's Big Ten title game between Wisconsin and Ohio State: game control. I wish I hadn’t.

It’s all about game state. What’s the score at the end of the first quarter? Because that’s going to tell you pretty much [what you need to know]. [...]

If Ohio State comes out and plays basically like they did last time they saw Wisconsin in the Big Ten title game, where Ohio State was up 14-0 almost immediately and Wisconsin realized real early, “Crap, what’s Plan B? Crap, we don’t have a Plan B,” We could see Ohio State looking really, really good and putting a big number on the board.

But if they can’t find an early advantage, Wisconsin’s more than happy to grind for four quarters and hit J.T. Barrett a lot and force a couple of turnovers and really make them miserable.

Now, part of that was a compliment, and part of it was stating the obvious — few teams are actually good at falling behind early and coming back. Usually when you fall behind early, it means you’re a lesser team. Ohio State has dilly-dallied a few times or spotted its opponent an early advantage and responded, but saying Wisconsin is not good at playing from behind is lazy.

It might also be untrue.

Option teams aside, Wisconsin might have the strongest identity in college football right now.

The Badgers are going to play strong, smart defense. They're going to run the football. They're going to make great great defenders and tight ends out of walk-on pieces of clay. And they can lull you into believing things that might have once been true but aren't now. Things like Wisconsin not really being able to fall behind the schedule/scoreboard.

Some quick stats for you from Wisconsin's statistical profile:

• On standard downs, the Badgers have a 48 percent success rate, slightly above the national average of 47 percent. Adjusting for opponent, they are No. 39 in Standard Downs S&P+. Perfectly decent.
• On passing downs, they have a 40 percent success rate, well above the national average of 31 percent. Adjusting for opponent, they are sixth in Passing Downs S&P+. Tremendous. And unexpected.

Compare that to the 2014 Wisconsin that got so memorably crushed by Ohio State in Indianapolis.

That Badger offense actually graded out a bit better overall (No. 26 in Off. S&P+), which isn’t an incredible surprise considering the year running back Melvin Gordon had.

The success came on standard downs, however. They were No. 11 in SD S&P+ and No. 63 in PD S&P+. On third-and-4 or more, quarterbacks Joel Stave and Tanner McEvoy combined for a 48 percent completion rate and a passer rating of only 92.7. Current quarterback Alex Hornibrook? 58 percent completion rate, 152.9 rating.

When Ohio State shut down Gordon early in the 2014 conference title game, there was no Plan B.

For this Wisconsin team, Plan B is almost better.

The Badgers have not played the strongest schedule in the world this year — they know it, you know it, we all know it.

But that’s mostly because of opposing offenses. They have played five opponents that rank in the Def. S&P+ top 30 at the moment, and against those five teams (Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Northwestern, and Purdue), the Badgers didn’t exactly grind out wins.

• Wisconsin vs. Def. S&P+ top 30: 5.8 yards per play, 31.4 points per game
• Wisconsin vs. everybody else: 6.7 yards per play, 37.3 points per game.

Granted, not all of those 31 points per game come from the offense. Defense and special teams have gotten into the act. But the Badgers’ offense has had moments of true quality this year — not grind-it-out-and-lean-on-you quality, just plain old quality.

The Badgers have been particularly good at catching back up to the chains. There’s not a direct correlation between being behind schedule and being behind on the scoreboard, but if you think about it, they’re pretty close. The whole idea of passing downs is that most teams are rendered one-dimensional, and opponents know they’re going to have to throw more and take more risks.

In many ways, then, that’s the same as being behind. So just because the Badgers haven’t been behind much this year doesn’t mean they wouldn’t respond well to it.

So if we’re not talking about Wisconsin as a team that needs a good first quarter to win ...

We’re left talking about Wisconsin as one of the three best teams Ohio State has played this year.

The Badgers are strong on offense (No. 40 in Off. S&P+) and have the best defense J.T. Barrett and the Buckeyes have seen all year (first in Def. S&P+).

Hornibrook could be the key. He has thrown some shaky interceptions at times, but he has shown a willingness to attempt big throws, and he’s completed a lot of them. He completed passes of 31 and 27 yards to A.J. Taylor on third-and-long, and most of the Badgers’ scoring drives against the good defenses mentioned above featured big third-down passing, not a road-grader drive from star running back Jonathan Taylor.

Overall, S&P+ says the Badgers are better than both Oklahoma (which romped over Ohio State in Columbus) and Penn State (which the Buckeyes defeated by one point at home).

For all of the pundits jumping ahead and already talking about a potential Alabama vs. Ohio State debate for the last Playoff spot, we should probably step back and remind ourselves that Wisconsin has a tremendous chance of rendering that debate moot.