MADISON, Wis. – This Saturday, the Wisconsin Badgers close out their non-conference schedule taking on the Georgia State Panthers at Camp Randall at 11am CT.

Georgia State is a team struggling into the early season. A member of the Sun Belt conference, Georgia State is taking a 0-2 record into Week 3 after losing by 10 to Ball State and by 34 to Air Force.

In both of those games, Georgia State failed to get anything close to a run game established. Their leading rusher Aaron Winchester has only 11 carries for 58 yards total, and the team has relied heavily on their pass game. Quarterback Conner Manning has gone 29-56 for 298 yards. He has two touchdowns and one interception to along with that.

A key player the Badgers will be focusing on wide receiver Robert Davis. The receiver has 11 receptions for 140 yards but has failed to reach the end zone yet this season and the Badgers defense will be trying to keep it that way come Saturday.

Offensively, the Badgers should have no trouble establishing a run game against Georgia State. In their matchup against Air Force, Georgia State gave up a total of 464 rushing yards. With starting running back Corey Clement questionable after suffering a left leg injury in the Akron game, Dare Ogunbowale, Taiwan Deal, and Bradrick Shaw will be asked to contribute.

Click here for the Badgers full injury report. 

In the passing game, Wisconsin will look to continue to spread the ball around as much as possible. Quarterback Bart Houston targeted tight end Troy Fumagalli heavily in the Week 1 win against LSU. In Week 2, however, Houston was able to find his wide receivers. Robert Wheelwright had four catches for 99 yards and Jazz Peavy had seven catches for 100 yards. Freshman receiver A.J. Taylor also hauled in two catches for 39 yards.

“Everybody will have their turn,” Houston said. “Jazz had his big day, Troy had his big day a couple weeks ago. Whomever is open is going to get the ball right?”

Houston’s play in the passing game has allowed his talented core of receivers to come on and gain confidence as the offseason has turned to regular season.

“My confidence is way up right now,” Peavy said. “It’s been growing everyday. I’ve been working on that all the time.”

The Badgers are seemingly all buying into the focus that their coach preaches as they are zeroed in on Georgia State, and not looking towards their conference schedule before it even arrives.

“You know obviously it was a big win last week,” left tackle Ryan Ramcyzk said. “But we watched the film and there is always little things that you can do here or there that just going to clean you up.”

“We can’t sit back against anybody, every game has to be a big game,” Peavy continued. “You have to approach every game, every week the same.”

Senior captain Dare Ogunbowale echoed his lineman’s mentality.

“Georgia State is not a warm up at all,” Ogunbowale said. “We don’t look at this lightly at all. The Big Ten is going to be what it is but we got to make sure we take care of our last non-conference game first.”

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