Wisconsin Football 2022- The Jim Leonhard Show ends, the Luke Fickell era begins

[Sixtolezcano]

On 10/14/2022 at 5:18 PM, Oxy said:

Yeah, USC will be more like Michigan and Penn State than OSU...so adding them will only make it even less likely that UW plays OSU.  UCLA might be good every few years but on the whole they are closer to Nebraska's level than our level.

Really? You must have missed the Michigan State game. They have a young and ‘meh” offensive line that is very undisciplined and poorly coached. Their QB is terrible. The only redeeming quality on offense is RB.

Defensively their D-line is very weak. Linebackers are young and their DBs are an unmitigated disaster. I really don’t think they will even get to a bowl game this year.

 

[Brewcrew82]

2 minutes ago, SomewhereInTime said:

I mean 2019 was headlined by two complete busts in Brown and Mertz.

Good god. Not this crap again. I will choose to ignore. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

16 minutes ago, SomewhereInTime said:

The secondary might be worse than I thought.  They may not win another game this year.

Re-read my post. It mentioned how they've put themselves in position to make plays, and in many cases haven't despite being in said position. That happened countless times today. I recall you saying they "couldn't guard anyone". If that's what you took away from today, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

[SomewhereInTime]

8 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Good god. Not this crap again. I will choose to ignore. 

How is it even an argument at this point?

[Jim French Stepstool]

10 minutes ago, yourout said:

Purdue might drop 45 on them next week.

Anything is possible I guess. But this defense allowed 2 TD drives in 4 quarters of football (unless you want to include the scintillating 12-yard drive in the 1st quarter). The secondary needed to make plays on balls they had a chance to make plays on & didn't.

Two critical TOs and a return to the mistakes of previous weeks were a much bigger factor IMO. In the middle 20 minutes of football they had the opportunity to add to a 14-7 lead & whiffed. That hurt them more than anything.

[Brewcrew82]

2 minutes ago, SomewhereInTime said:

How is it even an argument at this point?

This team has far bigger issues than Graham Mertz. 

[SomewhereInTime]

3 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

This team has far bigger issues than Graham Mertz. 

That doesnt change that he is bad.  When a recruiting class is highly ranked but the top couple guys are busts, the ranking doesnt really matter.

[Jim French Stepstool]

15 minutes ago, Sixtolezcano said:

Really? You must have missed the Michigan State game. They have a young and ‘meh” offensive line that is very undisciplined and poorly coached. Their QB is terrible. The only redeeming quality on offense is RB.

Defensively their D-line is very weak. Linebackers are young and their DBs are an unmitigated disaster. I really don’t think they will even get to a bowl game this year.

 

The DBs need to play better. 

They've had plenty of secondary groups worse than this one, as far as ability to run & cover are concerned. They just aren't finishing. Of course, what happened in OT gets magnified, because it's OT.

I think the O-line definitely has been poorly coached. Hopefully staff re-shuffling takes care of that, but change in a position group won't happen overnight.

The receivers as a group are fine. The O-line not being better at getting a push in the running game is making it harder for them to find space (no more 8-9 men in the box).

[yourout]

6 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

This team has far bigger issues than Graham Mertz. 

True..OLine is #1 problem.

Secondary is #1A.

It doesn't help that Braelon Allen is running like a ballerina more this year.

I know he's a patient runner but far too often this year he's gotten caught dancing.

[SomewhereInTime]

16 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Re-read my post. It mentioned how they've put themselves in position to make plays, and in many cases haven't despite being in said position. That happened countless times today. I recall you saying they "couldn't guard anyone". If that's what you took away from today, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

I said they cant cover anyone.  After today I still think that.

[Jim French Stepstool]

2 minutes ago, SomewhereInTime said:

That doesnt change that he is bad.  

It doesn't, if that were true. There's a lot more going on that's affecting his effectiveness.

He's not Unitas. He also isn't "bad".

[Brewcrew82]

5 minutes ago, SomewhereInTime said:

That doesnt change that he is bad.  When a recruiting class is highly ranked but the top couple guys are busts, the ranking doesnt really matter.

I wasn't even referring to the 2019 class in the first place. You just brought it up to attempt to score points on an old argument. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 minute ago, SomewhereInTime said:

I said they cant cover anyone.  After today I still think that.

Re-watch the game. Putting yourself in position to make a play & not making it is a far cry from trailing a receiver by 3-5 yards.

The second scenario is "can't cover anyone". 

[Brewcrew82]

2 minutes ago, yourout said:

True..OLine is #1 problem.

Secondary is #1A.

It doesn't help that Braelon Allen is running like a ballerina more this year.

I know he's a patient runner but far too often this year he's gotten caught dancing.

Trenches, Trenches, Trenches. We are getting absolutely manhandled there on offense and defense. So un-Wisconsin like, and it needs to change immediately if things are ever going to get turned around. So utterly perplexing, too, considering the talent on that OL. Makes me think a gutting of the coaching staff, including Leonhard, is necessary. 

[SomewhereInTime]

7 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

It doesn't, if that were true. There's a lot more going on that's affecting his effectiveness.

He's not Unitas. He also isn't "bad".

I shudder to think what a bad QB is then.  I think its been decades since UW has had a worse starter.

[Brewcrew82]

7 minutes ago, SomewhereInTime said:

I shudder to think what a bad QB is then.  I think its been decades since UW has had a worse starter.

Clearly, you didn't watch Alex Hornibrook in 2018, or Joel Stave, or Curt Phillips, etc..

[Jim French Stepstool]

About Mertz:

I said awhile back the jury on him is still out. He went through a lions' share of the game today making one bad throw, the obvious one in the 1st quarter. He made maybe 4-5 more in the later stages. He also used his feet today, which seldom happened in the past (there's way too much complaining about playcalling among football fans, but I actually thought he should've been rolled out a little more today than he was). One way or another, he needs to benefit from defenses honoring the run, which isn't happening enough. That means better O-line play, and it also means getting some help for Allen. Don't know how many carries he had today but the fumble was his first of the year, and it came at the end of a long, long grind. Mellusi being gone is going to be a real challenge unless they get something from Guerendo who didn't look good in his brief time from scrimmage. This stuff is just so interconnected; a lot needs to be cleaned up.

Also, anyone who has paid attention to Mertz since he's been here has seen his comfort level with TE's. That's been ripped away in mid-stream due to injuries. Just another challenge.

[SomewhereInTime]

4 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Clearly, you didn't watch Alex Hornibrook in 2018, or Joel Stave, or Curt Phillips, etc..

All clear upgrades.

[Brewcrew82]

Just now, SomewhereInTime said:

All clear upgrades.

No freaking way. This is why you have people questioning whether you're actually a Badgers fan. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

10 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Clearly, you didn't watch Alex Hornibrook in 2018, or Joel Stave, or Curt Phillips, etc..

Or Mike Samuel (if we're strictly grading on passing ability), Matt Schabert, Allen Evridge, Danny O'Brien, Dustin Sherer, Tanner McEvoy (see Samuel comment), and arguably Tyler Donovan.

[Brewcrew82]

Just now, Jim French Stepstool said:

Or Mike Samuel (if we're strictly grading on passing ability), Matt Schabert, Allen Evridge, Danny O'Brien, Dustin Sherer, Tanner McEvoy (see Samuel comment), and arguably Tyler Donovan.

He doesn't know. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

4 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

He doesn't know. 

I don't know because I don't follow the NFL, but sometimes I think FB fans around here spend their whole fandom lives watching Favre & Rodgers & get some kind of odd standard of what should be expected. Mertz has looked mediocre at times, sometimes even poor, and at times very good, sometimes within the same game. He needs to function within an offense that keeps mistakes down to a minimum, forces defenses to honor the run, and get put in down-and-distance situations where they throw when they CHOOSE to, not because they HAVE to. He's also dealing with an offense that is without a pass-catching TE for the first time since he's been here, and that's always been a security blanket for him.

 

[SomewhereInTime]

39 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

He doesn't know. 

Badger homers are absolutely priceless.  There are many large problems right now but to act like they're fine at QB is nuts.  How many inaccurate passes and balls thrown right to defenders does it take?

[Jim French Stepstool]

I don't know if anyone feels this way or not. But just in case anybody thinks JL was out-coached by Mel Tucker today, Tuckers' decision to use his last TO with 27 seconds left, and THEN throw to a reciever nowhere near the sidelines was one of the dumbest things I've seen in quite some time. It obviously led to the rush job & mishandled snap.

Of course they still find a way to win. It was that kind of day.

[Brewcrew82]

1 minute ago, SomewhereInTime said:

Badger homers are absolutely priceless.  There are many large problems right now but to act like they're fine at QB is nuts.  How many inaccurate passes and balls thrown right to defenders does it take?

You've already demonstrated you have no clue what you're talking about when it comes to Badger QBs.