In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Packers are getting ready to take on the Bears this Sunday in Green Bay. While we are still in early December, the Bears are somehow sitting at the top of the NFC. Who would have thought at the beginning of the season that the Bears and the Patriots would be the top teams in football this year? If the playoffs started today, they would be getting a bye while the Packers would take on the Eagles. But the playoffs are not starting today, and before we get to that point the Packers and Bears will face each other twice.The Bears are winning games against hard-to-beat teams, but at the end of the day Oates doesn’t think they’ll be on top for the rest of the season. Caleb Williams has been doing alright for himself under Ben Johnson, especially considering the Bears’ long history of squandering quarterbacks, and the Bears have a decent running game. But Jordan Love showed some really great stuff against the Lions last week, while LaFleur made some gutsy calls that paid off. While losing Devonte Wyatt is a big loss, says Oates, they’ll still put up a good fight against Chicago.

Meanwhile in Minneapolis, the Badgers ended their season on a whimper of a loss. The axe will stay in Minnesota for another year, it seems. This year racked up very few wins with an offense that’s at the bottom of the pile. They garnered a little bit of good will after a few wins, but they lost it all on Saturday once again. Oates has a big statement to make: Luke Fickell has botched up the two most important things in college football - the quarterback and the offense. Why wasn’t Carter Smith utilized more in the second half on Saturday? We can say that it’s because we don’t know how well he does passing back from the pocket, but still.

Finally, the Badgers men’s basketball team will make their Big 10 debut this season on Wednesday night when they take on Northwestern. They showed a few weaknesses against TCU last week, mostly in their inability to react when under defensive pressure. But after Northwestern comes Marquette in a Saturday afternoon game. Marquette coach Shaka Smart has a philosophy not to use the transfer portal too much, a move which is respected by Oates. But it might still kill the team, as it is vital to college basketball today. Either way, it’s always an exciting game when Wisconsin takes on Marquette.

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Packers are coming off a victory over a weak-looking Vikings to take part in a time-honored tradition: facing the Lions in Detroit on Thanksgiving Day. It is, at this point, a staple for late November. We can’t even remember when it started. It was a yearly thing until around 1962, when Lombardi’s Packers were probably the best they’ve been in history. They won every game that year but one: the Lions on Thanksgiving. 10 Hall of Famers were on that 62 team! And while the number of Bart Starr sacks is still debated, it did have one effect: Lombardi decided to put an end to the tradition. For a while. These days, while the Packers and Lions don’t play every year, it’s regular enough. The Lions’ fans have made a tradition of showing up loud, likely before going home for the turkey, and how are we to deny that. The Packers dominated the Lions earlier this year, but Oates says don’t count on that happening again on Thursday. That said, the Lions haven’t been playing their greatest in recent weeks. Their o-line has taken a turn for the worse, and their defense is not looking great either. Add in a few unfortunate injuries to Lions’ skills players and Detroit is definitely beatable. It will, however, be a tougher game for the Packers than their victory over the Vikings on Sunday. JJ McCarthy might be something in the future, and it’s still too early to make any real decisions on who he is as a player, but he certainly is not up to snuff quite yet. That said, it’s important to remember how Jordan Love played in the first half of 2023… Turning to Madison, fans stormed Camp Randall field once again on Saturday as the Badgers beat the ranked Illinois. Fans will react to anything at this point in the year; they went from nothing but doom and gloom to a little bit of a spark of improvement. They’ve been playing tough football for a few weeks now and it’s starting to pay off. Carter Smith is starting to show a little bit more of his stuff, and while he is still a freshman he has shown immense growth over the past few weeks. The question now is: can he continue to show growth against Minnesota and help the Badgers take the axe on Saturday? The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Badgers take on Illinois in Camp Randall on Saturday evening, in a game that’ll bring some familiar faces to the field. On top of the handful of defensive players and some assistants too, most everyone will recognize Bret Bielema standing as Illinois’ head coach. He’s done pretty well for himself in Illinois, and even with that history this is still not going to be seen as a rivalry game. Why is that? In professional sports, it’s always a big deal when Wisconsin takes on Illinois, but not in college and especially not in football. There might be some individual squabbles, sure, but at this point Northwestern is seen as more of a rival than Illinois.

Saturday’s game will be the first Wisconsin-Illinois game in Madison since 2022, when the Badgers played a miserable second half and Paul Chryst got sacked the next day. Think that’ll be on Fickell’s mind? Probably not, especially as it seems he might have saved his job. Yes, they lost badly to Indianna, but the team played hard. Pair that with the win over Washington (and the handful of votes of confidence), and we can be sure that Fickell will be back as head coach next year. The real question will be: is Carter Smith going to be the future of the program? It’s too early to say, says Oates, but we’ll know more in these last two games. One thing we know for sure is that he shows promise and we still don’t know anything about Billy Edwards anyways.

The Packers, meanwhile, got a tight win over the Giants on Sunday. The game was tighter than it should have been, but don’t put that on Jordan Love. He played pretty well, says Lucas, especially in the game-winning drive. Most of his missed passes were actually drops thanks to the young receiving core the Packers still struggle with. If Love could just learn how to slide, and when, maybe he’d be seen more for the quarterback that he is.

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.