Wisconsin Football 2023

[yourout]

Wow... That Acker run came out of nowhere.

[yourout]

The defense is done for the day.

[young guns]

Hard to tell but I think his toe is out.  Terrible this wasn't a booth review on something that close.

[yourout]

LSU might still cover.

[AKCheesehead]

The one view would have shown for sure but the camera man was in the way. Oh well. 

[yourout]

I absolutely loathe shotgun from 1 yard 

[yourout]

Fickell is not a very good game manager.

[yourout]

At no point did I actually think they were going to win this.

Just too much of a talent Gap.

[yourout]

That was a sad way to end it.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Terrible time for the offensive line to wave a white flag three plays in a row. 

[adambr2]

Why were we in such a hurry? There was still 1:30 left, 2 timeouts and we're in the redzone, 2nd and 2 and we're not running the ball once? 

Just a horribly botched last drive. 

[wildcat83]

Rough way to end an otherwise solid performance.  I kept thinking draw on that drive, especially 2nd and 2 with about 1:40 left.  You wanted some clock off anyways and it keeps their rush honest.  Sucks to lead the whole game except the last 3:00

[yourout]

1 minute ago, adambr2 said:

Why were we in such a hurry? There was still 1:30 left, 2 timeouts and we're in the redzone, 2nd and 2 and we're not running the ball once? 

Just a horribly botched last drive. 

Really a poorly managed game.

[LouisEly]

The only thing I can think of is that they were down to essentially one RB the entire 2nd half and Acker was playing every play and was probably gassed and running on fumes.  Otherwise, yeah, you need to run a draw somewhere there.  Mordecai also tried to do too much - on 2nd and 2 if the quick read isn't there, throw it away right away or tuck it and run.

That play, and then the hurry-up to lose five yards on the 1 yard line.  Two plays cost them the game.

[ReverendBrewmeister]

Some of the season-long faults of the team showed up in the second half. Couldn’t convert first-and-goal from the 1. Gave up a 98 yard touchdown drive with little resistance. Offensive line got run over on the final drive. Fickell will need to show some improvement in next season’s squad. Don’t doubt that it can be shown. 

[yourout]

7 minutes ago, ReverendBrewmeister said:

Some of the season-long faults of the team showed up in the second half. Couldn’t convert first-and-goal from the 1. Gave up a 98 yard touchdown drive with little resistance. Offensive line got run over on the final drive. Fickell will need to show some improvement in next season’s squad. Don’t doubt that it can be shown. 

Not sure tressel is the answer for a DC.

He made be okay if he had better talent than the other guys but that's not going to happen too often at Wisconsin.

One thing our run of defensive coordinators had was they were good at generating overload pressure from one side or the other and tressel is pretty much a straight up coming right at you pass rush scheme.

That's fine if you have four guys up front that can consistently beat the o-line across from them but that's not going to happen here.

[LouisEly]

I don't think that any defensive scheme was going to overcome the talent gap between their DL and OLB and LSU's offense.  They were going to have to outscore them, and to their credit, they almost did.

Heck of a lot better than being an Iowa fan today.  Ooof.

[yourout]

2 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

I don't think that any defensive scheme was going to overcome the talent gap between their DL and OLB and LSU's offense.  They were going to have to outscore them, and to their credit, they almost did.

Heck of a lot better than being an Iowa fan today.  Ooof.

It's shaping up to be a pretty bad day for the Big ten.

[yourout]

Looking at that schedule for next year and man it's brutal.

The best you're going to hope for is getting to a bowl game and it might be in Detroit.

I honestly don't see Wisconsin getting back to a Big ten championship game possibly in the rest of my life time with the teams that have been added from the pac-12.

[Jim French Stepstool]

Agree with many of the sentiments on here. This offense showed it's effective side today. Mordecai was mostly very good, with excellent reads. Virtually all of his decisions to throw deep were good ones. Receivers did a nice job getting open. Tempo was nice. But the flip side is self-evident. I mentioned earlier about the 2nd quarter 3rd & 1 play where LSU appeared to have no thoughts of defensing a run, and didn't have to. Then we had Mordecai rolling out ON 1ST & GOAL FROM THE ONE. Finally, the 2nd & 2 from the 19. As far as LSU wondering what to dial up defensively, it may as well have been 3rd & 13. That has to change moving forward.

We never could get any pressure on their passer, which certainly didn't help.

Most people probably wouldn't consider this a key play, but I thought it was huge when LSU started from their own 2, and on 2nd & 10 ran for nine yards. Stuff that for a gain of 4 or less & you have a chance to get a down & distance where we actually had a little success earlier.

I'd like to know what the personnel situation was in that drive regarding the DBs. Jonas Duclona (true freshman) looked outmatched.

AFA I could tell Nolan Rucci wasn't bad at LT subbing for Nelson, given the opponent.

Props to both Yacamelli & Acker. And Kekahuna looks like a playmaker that will fit this scheme pretty well.

[Jim French Stepstool]

35 minutes ago, DuWayne Steurer said:

Terrible time for the offensive line to wave a white flag three plays in a row. 

It's tough when you're one-dimensional. People always say that when the team they pull for runs the ball a lot. Same holds true for when you get pass-happy, especially when you're in the red zone & the secondary has less ground to cover. As others pointed out, they reached a spot on the field where they no longer had to throw exclusively. I'll admit it's hindsight. But 2nd & 2 leaves you with a lot of options, and we treated it as if we had none.

[LouisEly]

2 minutes ago, yourout said:

Looking at that schedule for next year and man it's brutal.

The best you're going to hope for is getting to a bowl game and it might be in Detroit.

Bit of an overreaction, don't you think?  You don't think that they can get eight wins from Western Michigan, South Dakota, Purdue, Rutgers, Northwestern, Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota?  If you watched USC towards the end of the season you would know that they are nothing to fear - they gave up 41 to Colorado, 41 to Arizona, 48 to Notre Dame, 34 to Utah, 49 to Cal(!), 52 to Washington, 36 to Oregon, and 38 to UCLA and lost 5 of their last 6.  They're losing Williams to the NFL and at last check had 15 players in the transfer portal including a 5-star freshman QB.

The remaining three are really tough but they are all at home.  Last time they played Oregon they should have beat them in the 2019 Rose Bowl if it wasn't for a botched punt and a bad pass interference call.

[Jim French Stepstool]

25 minutes ago, yourout said:

 

One thing our run of defensive coordinators had was they were good at generating overload pressure from one side or the other and tressel is pretty much a straight up coming right at you pass rush scheme.

That's fine if you have four guys up front that can consistently beat the o-line across from them but that's not going to happen here.

Tressel dialed up some effective stuff from time-to-time this year w/the corner blitz. But otherwise, yeah. On the other hand this was a very good offensive line they faced today. Fickell has been really heavy on recruiting DBs & safeties, if they defend as per their press clippings/expectations I think they'll be able to generate an effective enough rush. And Keanu Benton could occupy two blockers last year, while Isaiah Mullins wound up never seeing the field in 2023. That didn't help.

[Jim French Stepstool]

7 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

Bit of an overreaction, don't you think?  You don't think that they can get eight wins from Western Michigan, South Dakota, Purdue, Rutgers, Northwestern, Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota?  If you watched USC towards the end of the season you would know that they are nothing to fear - they gave up 41 to Colorado, 41 to Arizona, 48 to Notre Dame, 34 to Utah, 49 to Cal(!), 52 to Washington, 36 to Oregon, and 38 to UCLA and lost 5 of their last 6.  They're losing Williams to the NFL and at last check had 15 players in the transfer portal including a 5-star freshman QB.

The remaining three are really tough but they are all at home.  Last time they played Oregon they should have beat them in the 2019 Rose Bowl if it wasn't for a botched punt and a bad pass interference call.

I agree with this. At the beginning of the Alvarez era, you had Ohio State & Michigan to deal with. If at that time someone would've said that Penn State & Nebraska would be joining the league soon, well, maybe we should just play lacrosse. 

Teams go through good & bad stretches. Just try to raise your own bar.

[homer]

I think they will figure out the D. I'm more concerned about the red zone play calling (which was a problem for Longo at UNC) and Fickell's unwillingness to go for it on 4th down.