Wisconsin vs. Washington State gamethread

[yourout]

10 hours ago, SomewhereInTime said:

Rebuild will take a couple years, this isn't Colorado with 80+ new players rostered.

Right now there is to many mismatched parts.

Running the spread without a QB running threat.

Trying to run an attacking defense without the speed guys to do it. So much of JLs defenses were about scheme and discipline. The new guy wants to attach in the open field but all that leads to right now is missed tackles because it's one on one with no help.

[HarryDoyle]

And just like that, Wisconsin is unranked. Makes you wonder how they were while Colorado and WSU weren't.

[LouisEly]

5 hours ago, HarryDoyle said:

And just like that, Wisconsin is unranked. Makes you wonder how they were while Colorado and WSU weren't.

There's so much player turnover in CFB that there isn't really any game film to make an accurate estimate until the 3rd week.  Pre-season is basically a guess outside of the top 5-10.

[Jim French Stepstool]

On 9/9/2023 at 10:22 PM, Samurai Bucky said:

  The fumbles by Mordecai were squarely on the left side of his offensive line

A thousand times, yes. When someone coughs up the football, I guess you HAVE to put at least part of the blame on the fumbler. But on both plays he was blind-sided, and Jack Nelson was beaten badly. Your LT needs to be one of your most talented O-lineman, if not THE most talented. He cost us 7 points, and was lucky he didn't cost us more. A returning vet simply needs to be a lot better than that.

[Jim French Stepstool]

Other thoughts:

I've seen a lot of games where a defense looks lost for the initial possession, then adjusts & recovers. Last night it took them about a quarter-and-a-half. That was actually a pretty tough team to guard, and to hold them from about midway through the 2nd quarter on to one touchdown was surprising. I didn't think it was much more than finally adjusting to their speed & tempo, although Tressel did dial up some nice pressure. And some of it actually came from the D-Line, which was gratifying. Turner had a very nice 2nd half. It's a pretty good to very good LB group. I think the secondary will prove that they can cover. Tackling might be something else. We'll see. Latu looked kinda lost again.

Without people pulling out & no fullback, the run game looks........like something they don't spend much time on, frankly. Braelon Allen was excited to be running w/o the 8th man in the box. Is that mitigated by not having a lead blocker? Is it a positive tradeoff to be thrown to out in the flat, usually exposed? I just hope, moving forward, that there's the balance they speak of, because right now it's not all that convincing.

If they underachieve, I'm pretty sure Mordecai won't be the reason. Still not sure of the progressions but I thought he was pretty good.

Disappointing that they didn't get the safety call. I wasn't shocked they didn't, but then again I've seen PAC-12 refs before.

Before that, there was the WSU possession where they started at the one. They had not one, but two ugly plays where the ball could've taken a funny bounce & wound up a safety or even a defensive TD. Neither happened either time. Also, the Kaden Johnson penalty on the punt return was untimely & incredibly dumb.

Real nice bounceback for Atticus Bertrams.