Wisconsin Football 2023

[HarryDoyle]

OK, that was a terrible call by Fickell to punt with 14 seconds left. Inexcusable.

Probably the worst half of Badger football I've seen since the pre-Alvarez era.

[burnzy24]

1 hour ago, yourout said:

This is a bad poorly coached team.

This is, personnel wise, the same team that blew out Northwestern 42-7   last year. Plus this is a northwestern team that lost their head coach and some transfers right before the season started. This is not a good coaching staff.   I'm not a "fire everyone guy"  but I'm ready to clean house, including the AD. 

Edited November 11, 2023 by burnzy24
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[HarryDoyle]

However far back you think this team set back football, it's not far enough.

[LouisEly]

1 hour ago, HarryDoyle said:

OK, that was a terrible call by Fickell to punt with 14 seconds left. Inexcusable.

That was the one good decision they made.  Don't want to give the other team the ball at midfield with 14 seconds left and three timeouts.

I don't think I've seen such poor execution on 3rd down on both sides of the ball in a game ever.  And how bad must Nolan Rucci be to not be able to bench Jack Nelson?

[LouisEly]

UW's defense gave up almost 300 yards in the first half.  They gave up 30 total yards in the second half.  Wisconsin outgained NU on offense 341 yards to 324.  And the offense couldn't score in the second half.

Yeah, the defense dug a huge hole in the first half.  But they need to figure out what the hell is going on with the offense and why they stall when they get into opponent's territory.

[WV Brew]

Total

Errors

And

Miscues

[yourout]

The most disheartening part of this is they simply are not improving in any phase.

[SomewhereInTime]

Lowest point for this program in decades, bowl game seems unlikely.

[yourout]

One of the things we lost by transitioning to the spread as it is now easier for opponents to defend us because 90% of the other teams run the spread as well instead of running a pro style offense which is rarely seen in college these days.

[Jim French Stepstool]

Almost too many individual, team, & staff shortcomings to mention from this game. So I'll point out something from a big-picture perspective----This team has played their two worst games of the season, in games nine & ten. 

Think about that.

Obviously the hope is that the players are simply a bad match for the new staff/system. But that doesn't explain how you get worse in the last two weeks, unless there are just enough disillusioned people on the field to drag everyone else down.

Whether they win, lose, or split, these are two pretty important games coming up, as far as taking an overall pulse of things is concerned.

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, LouisEly said:

UW's defense gave up almost 300 yards in the first half.  They gave up 30 total yards in the second half.  Wisconsin outgained NU on offense 341 yards to 324.  And the offense couldn't score in the second half.

Yeah, the defense dug a huge hole in the first half.  But they need to figure out what the hell is going on with the offense and why they stall when they get into opponent's territory.

I'm thinking of the Brees teams at Purdue. A lot of passes, many short routes. Little to no running game. Against better defenses they would be taxed to get the ball into the end zone once they got to the 20-25 yd line. I think that's related to the problem here. Let's face it, these receivers have issues getting consistently open from anywhere on the field. When the defense is compressed it's that much tougher. And apparently the days of the O-line leaning on a front seven, wearing them out, and a tailback getting "lathered up" are long gone. They were relegated to the same short routes and maybe Mordecai using his legs. So much of this, even the Air Raid, benefits from teams having to honor the run. That's never really happened this year.

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, yourout said:

The most disheartening part of this is they simply are not improving in any phase.

After watching the last 30-odd years of UW football I felt like I was in some sort of alternate universe in the first half. This was early, before they fell behind by multiple scores. We had a 3rd & 2, and not only threw the ball but made it clear that's what we were doing, as if it were 3rd & nine. A possession or two later, Northwestern had a 3rd & 4, ran the ball, and picked up the 1st down. Regardless of your system, regardless of your personnel, if you can't even plant the seed of possibly running on 3rd & 2 that's an issue.

 I'd have to say the defense has gotten better from early in the season. Of course the outlier was the terrible 1st half today.

[JosephC]

The biggest irony to this season - it seemed like many people in Madison disliked the Longo hire.  Not because they didn't like him, not because they disliked the spread or air raid offense, but because Longo was one of those super-hot coordinators and they figured he would be in Madison one year before jumping to a head coaching job.  I don't think they have to worry about that now.

[owbc]

As long as the sucking doesn’t scare away recruits I don’t really care. Seems like they need to use the Deion Sanders approach on some of the leftover personnel from the previous era. Blow it all up, college football moves too quickly for a 3 year rebuild. 

[yourout]

1 hour ago, owbc said:

As long as the sucking doesn’t scare away recruits I don’t really care. Seems like they need to use the Deion Sanders approach on some of the leftover personnel from the previous era. Blow it all up, college football moves too quickly for a 3 year rebuild. 

I'm afraid the next couple of years are going to be really really really hard to watch.

If the only way he can win is to out recruit other Big ten teams that's a recipe for disaster.

I read some posts from some Cincinnati fans that said the next time fickle out coaches the apposition will be the first time.

They all said he's a great recruiter and a good guy but not much of a game week coach.

[Samurai Bucky]

6 hours ago, yourout said:

I read some posts from some Cincinnati fans that said the next time fickle out coaches the apposition will be the first time.

They all said he's a great recruiter and a good guy but not much of a game week coach.

Even so, his teams have been to the college playoffs more times that Wisconsin.

Also, Tressel is coaching the defense and Longo is coaching the offense.  I don't think he is going to micromanage.  Yes, he does control the in-game decisions like whether or not to kick a field goal.

What I can't stand is seeing the Badgers get out worked and out hustled.  When we sat in the 13th row on the 45 earlier this year, I was ready to stand up and yell for them to get their heads out of their asses.  Mrs. Samurai put an end to that.  Fortunately, the offensive line coach dropped some f-bombs and lit a fire under some back sides.

I still believe the team comes out every week unprepared.  On defense, when it is third and five, you don't give a 10-yard cushion.  Especially after the film shows they can complete a six yard out or hook EVERY TIME.  It is a pitch and catch.

When you play six defensive backs, of course you aren't going to stop the run as well as if you were playing a 3-4.  So how do you stop the run?  You don't.

When your offensive line only has flashes of being able to open holes, what do you do?  Continue to run between the tackles.  Even when Allen and Mellusi were healthy, the holes weren't there.

I turned the game off before halftime.  I never do that.  It is only sports and I have better things to do...

[yourout]

13 minutes ago, Samurai Bucky said:

Even so, his teams have been to the college playoffs more times that Wisconsin.

Also, Tressel is coaching the defense and Longo is coaching the offense.  I don't think he is going to micromanage.  Yes, he does control the in-game decisions like whether or not to kick a field goal.

What I can't stand is seeing the Badgers get out worked and out hustled.  When we sat in the 13th row on the 45 earlier this year, I was ready to stand up and yell for them to get their heads out of their asses.  Mrs. Samurai put an end to that.  Fortunately, the offensive line coach dropped some f-bombs and lit a fire under some back sides.

I still believe the team comes out every week unprepared.  On defense, when it is third and five, you don't give a 10-yard cushion.  Especially after the film shows they can complete a six yard out or hook EVERY TIME.  It is a pitch and catch.

When you play six defensive backs, of course you aren't going to stop the run as well as if you were playing a 3-4.  So how do you stop the run?  You don't.

When your offensive line only has flashes of being able to open holes, what do you do?  Continue to run between the tackles.  Even when Allen and Mellusi were healthy, the holes weren't there.

I turned the game off before halftime.  I never do that.  It is only sports and I have better things to do...

I don't think you and I are very far apart in our take on the current status of things.

I agree that it was probably time for Chryst to go but I think switching to a spread offense was a colossal mistake that we can't recruit to. And by switching to the same thing that 90% of college football is running it makes game prep for the opponent even easier because they're used to having to defend it all the time.

The biggest priority needs to be generating a dominant offensive line because everything revolves from that.

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 hour ago, yourout said:

I don't think you and I are very far apart in our take on the current status of things.

I agree that it was probably time for Chryst to go but I think switching to a spread offense was a colossal mistake that we can't recruit to. And by switching to the same thing that 90% of college football is running it makes game prep for the opponent even easier because they're used to having to defend it all the time.

The biggest priority needs to be generating a dominant offensive line because everything revolves from that.

And, you're now recruiting kids that, by & large, aren't coming from this state & have a lot of other people vying for their services. You had a tradition of not only locking up some of the better linemen from Wisconsin, but corralling & developing people like Tauscher , Panos & Ramczyk who were walkons & made quite a difference. So far so good on the early recruiting returns, but the switch of emphasis to skill guys & defensive backs will make it more challenging to fill a roster.

I too love the big, dominant offensive lines. I think it should be a priority, and I've even heard Fickell pay lip service to it. But as things stand right now, he needs to convince me that he really feels that way. He has five coming in. Whether any can make the 2-deep immediately I have no idea.

[Jim French Stepstool]

2 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

Even so, his teams have been to the college playoffs more times that Wisconsin.

Also, Tressel is coaching the defense and Longo is coaching the offense.  I don't think he is going to micromanage.  Yes, he does control the in-game decisions like whether or not to kick a field goal.

What I can't stand is seeing the Badgers get out worked and out hustled.  When we sat in the 13th row on the 45 earlier this year, I was ready to stand up and yell for them to get their heads out of their asses.  Mrs. Samurai put an end to that.  Fortunately, the offensive line coach dropped some f-bombs and lit a fire under some back sides.

I still believe the team comes out every week unprepared.  On defense, when it is third and five, you don't give a 10-yard cushion.  Especially after the film shows they can complete a six yard out or hook EVERY TIME.  It is a pitch and catch.

When you play six defensive backs, of course you aren't going to stop the run as well as if you were playing a 3-4.  So how do you stop the run?  You don't.

When your offensive line only has flashes of being able to open holes, what do you do?  Continue to run between the tackles.  Even when Allen and Mellusi were healthy, the holes weren't there.

I turned the game off before halftime.  I never do that.  It is only sports and I have better things to do...

Good stuff.

The extent to which a HC sticks his nose into the workings of a game, or a practice for that matter, varies from coach to coach. I think Longo & Tressel have a LOT of leeway. Ten games in, watching him on the sidelines & listening to his pressers I think Fickell's as "hands off" as anyone we've had in recent decades. I don't particularly care for that, but if they were 8-2 I'm sure it wouldn't bother me.

They certainly have looked unprepared, especially the last couple games. I totally discard the idea of cleaning house & leaning on the portal to build a program as someone suggested, but these next couple weeks do seem to be "find out who wants to be here" time. If you're looking for guys who are buying in, in a way this is a perfect scenario. It's easy to be committed to a program when you're having success.

I think our wives may be related lol.

[yourout]

This should be interesting and ugly.

[yourout]

That's some really pathetic run defense to start the game.

[HarryDoyle]

Well that was reminiscent of Kaepernick against the Packers in 2012. Embarrassing.

[HarryDoyle]

Did they just say that Longo was proud of the offensive line, saying it's been a bright spot?

[yourout]

Didn't take long for Jack Nelson's name to get called.

[yourout]

There is some serious game planning and fundamental issues to go with limited talent.