Badgers keep making gains in AP poll despite not playing

Maybe the Wisconsin Badgers shouldn’t play any games this season. At the rate their going, they’ll be No. 1 in the Associated Press top-25 poll by mid-November.

OK, we’re being facetious here, but with the Big Ten not playing games until late October and AP voters putting teams from that conference on their top-25 ballots, it’s been interesting to see how Wisconsin has been impacted.

Last week, when Wisconsin was No. 19, 15 voters didn’t include Wisconsin – although four had some Big Ten teams but not the Badgers.

This week, UW moved up to No. 16 in the poll (gaining 109 points). Not bad for a team which is 0-0.

Five voters who didn’t have Wisconsin ranked last week put the Badgers on their ballot on Week 5, including three who had other Big Ten teams ranked last week – Michael Lev (who now has the Badgers at 13!), Pat Dooley (17) and Jerry DiPaola (18).

Wisconsin must have really impressed in practice as several voters have the Badgers a decent jump, including Nathan Baird (16 to 10), Eric Hansen (18 to 13), Jon Johnson (23 to 17), Davis Potter (22 to 14) and Don Williams (19 to 11).

Of course, not everyone saw it that way. Audrey Dahlgren knocked Wisconsin down from 13 to 20.

Here are all the votes from Week 5 with Week 4 included for comparison’s sake: