Trap game. That is the phrase being shouted to the high heavens from both Penn State faithful and media pundits about Penn State’s match-up on the road against Wisconsin tonight.

The Badgers will host the Nittany Lions (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC) in a key Big Ten match-up in what should be an electric environment in Madison.

Looking back at Penn State’s schedule, the Nittany Lions have played pretty well in tough road environments this season. PSU was able to handle West Virginia in Morgantown in the season opener and just two weeks ago, it was able to escape Los Angeles with a come-from-behind overtime win against USC.

The environment at USC wasn’t anything to write home about, but the fact that Penn State traveled over 2,500 miles against a team with high-quality athletes, got down and came back is definitely something it can build off. The Wisconsin environment is always challenging, but it’s not something I think will shell shock the Nittany Lions.

Let’s first look at the Badgers.

The big talk around the college football landscape when it comes to this match-up is how well Wisconsin has played over the last three weeks. The Badgers have defeated Purdue, Rutgers and Northwestern by a combined score of 117-16 and they have allowed just one touchdown in those three games. Stacking wins is not easy in college football ,and it’s evident that Wisconsin is playing solid football.

But let’s take a deeper look. Purdue, Rutgers and Northwestern have a combined record of 9-12 and a combined Big Ten record of 2-10. Purdue, Rutgers and Northwestern also have the 107th, 77th and 129th ranked offenses in the country. Again, no win should be taken for granted, but Penn State is bringing some different weapons to the table this week than what Wisconsin has faced over the past three weeks.

The Penn State rushing attack didn’t perform as well as it should have against USC a few weeks ago. Nick Singleton was coming off a week where he did not play due to some bumps and bruises, and the Nittany Lions could never get him or Kaytron Allen going. PSU was able to do enough at times to keep the Trojans honest, but it can’t be denied that it was one of its least impressive performances of the season running the football.

Fortunately for Penn State, it had one of its best passing games of the season with Drew Allar, who threw for 391 yards, and Tyler Warren broke all sorts of records in that game with 17 catches for 224 yards.

Coming off a bye, rested and with time to clean some things up in the running game, I could see the Nittany Lions putting together an Illinois-type performance against the Badgers. Against the Illini, who are very solid on the defensive end, Penn State was able to rush for 239 yards and three touchdowns. Allen led the way with 102 yards and a touchdown and Singleton added 94 yards and a rushing score.

Wisconsin has struggled to defend the run this season, as it’s giving up almost 140 yards per game, which ranks the Badgers 61st in the country in run defense. Even after the Nittany Lions lackluster rushing performance against USC, they still rank 25th in the country in rushing offense at 201.1 yards per game.

We have yet to even talk about the confidence factor with PSU quarterback Allar. Anybody that watched him late in the game against USC saw him make some plays in critical fourth down situations that not many signal callers throughout the country are making. I think you’re going to start to see Allar really take the next step, and you can see that he’s really starting to trust a multitude of players in the passing game.

His top target has been Warren, but Harrison Wallace III, Omari Evans, Liam Clifford and Julian Fleming have all made significant plays for PSU this season in the passing game.

The Badgers have a good defense as they rank 14th in the country in total defense, but if Allar plays with the same confidence that he did against USC late in that ball game tonight against the Badgers, then the match-up certainly favors the Nittany Lions.

Wisconsin quarterback Braedyn Locke has done a nice job over the past few weeks settling into the starting quarterback role. Locke came in against Alabama when starter Tyler Van Dyke went down. The Badgers are always going to look to establish the run, and they’ve been able to do that with running back Tawee Walker. Walker has nice stats on the season, with 565 yards rushing and nine touchdowns. Expect to see Wisconsin again try and run the football and get that part of its offense going early on.

Overall, PSU has once again been good against the run this season, ranking 10th in the country in run defense giving up just 95 rushing yards per game. USC did have success running the football against Penn State, with one really big explosive play and also with the play of running back Woody Marks, who is a legitimate NFL draft prospect. USC likes to spread teams out and get its running backs out in space and Penn State did have a few assignment breakdowns in that game.

However, again I’m going to mention the bye week. I think you will see the Nittany Lions’ defense clean up those assignment issues and play the run much better later tonight.

Las Vegas has Penn State as a 6.5-point favorite.

The Nittany Lions’ pass rush is talented and although it has been inconsistent at times, I think this group will be chomping at the bit to get after the quarterback, especially coming off the bye week. Locke has been prone to throwing interceptions this season, as he has seven touchdowns to five interceptions. That will be a key in the game for sure.

Lastly, Penn State continues to do some good things when it comes to generating explosive plays on offense, as it ranks second in the nation in explosive play percentage. Wisconsin ranks 62nd in the country in giving up explosive plays.

My pick is: Penn State 35, Wisconsin 20.