Badgers Football 2019

[True Blue Brew Crew]

I'd like to also reiterate the difference it makes when your offense isn't extremely predictable and the defense isn't handed the advantage of knowing what's coming via your tendencies and formations. Urban Meyer spoke to Wisconsin's predictability at halftime on Saturday. We are witnessing the difference it makes each and every Sunday this season with the Green Bay Packers.

[pacopete4]

The recency bias in this thread is strong. OSU has crushed UW exactly twice in their last 7 meetings. The other five were one score or less. In 2010 UW beat OSU by two scores. People want to cry about the offensive scheme but never say boo about a defense that has given up 38, 27, 30, 59, and 31 points in the last five matchups. So is that scheme too?

 

Some of it, yes. And people have said plenty over the years about our defense but know that our offensive scheme holds them back in a lot of ways as well. We can make up excuses all we want but UW is happy with their competition in the Big Ten West and will take the occasional upset they get. They are not incentivized in the slightest to make a change and try to knock off big-time opponents like OSU.

[tmwiese55]

I've said the same thing, that's been my main point in the last week that the O has to be improved/tweaked somehow.

 

Yes, of course upsets can happen and you can still win. which we have done vs them, and have gotten close several times. In recent years we pulled off our upsets vs LSU, USC, MIA, etc but just not vs OSU. But the fact that they're upsets to begin with is the main point. Because you can win here and there does not negate the absolute fact that they're massively more talented than us and almost any other team besides Bama. You can put your head in the sand regarding the 4/5 star recruit ranks and NFL results but it's just facts that OSU is massively more talented and it's completely supported by the eye test watching these games up close and in person.

 

Also, Clemson's NFL players are probably going to start piling up in the next few years. I'm surprised their total isn't higher but I guess their 'boom' kinda just started the last 4ish years.

[MrTPlush]

In recent years we pulled off our upsets vs LSU, USC, MIA, etc but just not vs OSU. But the fact that they're upsets to begin with is the main point.

 

Those were....upsets? We were ranked higher than both USC and Miami at the time of those games. I would assume the spread was within 5 too even if it swayed the opponents way. LSU...debatable.

 

Regardless those supposed upsets aren't even in the same universe as winning a game versus OSU. Those upsets were like winning $5 on a scratcher and cheering about winning the lottery. Technically maybe...but not much.

[tmwiese55]

With how good we are we're never big dogs. Top of my head I think they were 7 pts dogs to LSU, probably the 2nd biggest dog they've been in recent years after Bama and last weekend (ignoring 2018 in my commentary again, blacking out that year haha). And being that Miami was in their home stadium I'd guess about the same. I might be able to find. USC I'd guess by just a few points.

 

Home games vs OSU in recent years have been pickems and within 3 pts one way or the other. We were faves in the 59-0 game and under 7 pt dogs in the last title game.

 

ETA: My first find is that we were -12.5 dogs to LSU at Lambeau. Also big dogs of course to them in Houston when we almost won. My memory thinks 12.5 is wrong in that game though, gonna try to find a 2nd source later. That's best I can find on that. Beating LSU is definitely on par with beating OSU imo. Did find that you were right that we were 6ish faves at Mia, bit surprised there being a home game for them and all. Can't find a USC one that lists it, but looking back on it good chance we're a slight fave there too. Only 3.5 dogs to OSU in the 2017 title game. I guess pig pic, are we going to be all mad that we're doing so well that we're favored against these big profile teams even in their backyards? Or in general that we're almost never more than a TD dog to anyone? Those are good things.

 

ETA: Found USC in Phil Steele's, UW was 3 pt dog. It also verified the LSU line. Few others in recent years they won as dogs too, at MSU and a few others. Thing I noticed in his is that over the last 10 years ATS as dogs they've covered the vast majority of game. That doesn't mean they won the game though.

[Samurai Bucky]

OSU is very good... plain and simple. However, the few times we had a read option, and the QB (wildcat or otherwise) kept the ball, it worked well. Like many have mentioned -- the offense is too predictable and stagnant.

 

Remember, Chryst turned down the OC job for the Dallas Cowboys. He must know what he is doing. Isn't Joe Rudolph the OC for the Badgers now? Is he calling the plays?

[tmwiese55]

Chryst turned down U of Texas too. Yes Rudolph is the OC and OL coach. They do not give a clear answer as to who is calling the plays. My best guess is that it's Rudolph with of course heavy input from PC. PC was one of the best play callers for years, if he's not doing it all himself after several years of offensive stagnation now he should take it back over. If he is calling, well then he needs to re-evaluate what he's doing.

[MrTPlush]

They are both to blame to some degree. End of the day PC is the head coach so by default he is responsible for pretty much everything. Rudolph on the other hand is the OC so I would imagine he is pretty darn responsible for play creation/scheme...which is also not very acceptable.

 

Before worrying about the play calls they should probably evaluate the entire play book and offensive philosophy. Because I think the foundation of the offense is a bit broke these days.

[tmwiese55]

Yea that's a good way to put it Plush. In general, i'd say you do want to stick to the traditional power running that made UW great to begin with but you have to adapt and add things.

 

I guess spitballing here I know many are blasting the lack of creativity as a big issue (I agree) but really they've gone to a ton of shotgun, spread, pistol type stuff which frankly is new to us. So I guess you could say they are trying new things in a way. To me, the issue is how much everything is telegraphed. Things like more options out of the same sets, RPOs, etc. Play Action!!! Passing on 1st down. Passing out of under center, not just shotgun. Don't have your personnel be a huge giveaway in regards to run/pass. Much of the pre snap motioning and shifts we used to do are gone. Standard play action pass to the TE is gone. Think of the Chiefs offense last night with the limited QB but think of all the motions and misdirections.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Two personnel areas the badgers routinely struggle to compete with the true elite programs in college football are secondary and WRs - and it's simply a quality depth problem. They tend to have 1-2 players on their rosters each year that wind up playing on Sundays and are top 4 round draft prospects as DBs or WRs, but programs like OSU, Alabama, LSU probably have around a dozen on average at the speed/skill positions that are talented enough to be considered NFL prospects when they come in the door at those schools.

 

If you aren't blessed with extremely deep position groupings at the skill positions where speed and athleticism stands out, you're going to have weaknesses on the field at those positions where the dominant programs can continually expose you or make you adjust your game plan to hamper your strengths. That's just how it is with Wisconsin.

 

When the Badgers have their best teams, their only shot to win Rose Bowls or pursue national titles is for OSU to either be down or not on their schedule, and for some of the other blue bloods to have growing pain years. That was even the case back with Alvarez was getting to Rose Bowls more consistently. And those teams always had solid offensive lines. I think the past few seasons have seen the Badgers' O line take a big step back in terms of talent - particularly with pass blocking.

[MrTPlush]

I guess pig pic, are we going to be all mad that we're doing so well that we're favored against these big profile teams even in their backyards? Or in general that we're almost never more than a TD dog to anyone? Those are good things.

 

I mean your true underdog games are OSU, Penn State, and depending on the year Michigan.

 

People will point out the games tend to be close, but I think that is a bit of an insult. They consistently lose every single freaking time. With Ohio State, sure, you can claim 99% of teams lose to them too. I also don't think it helps to not play them consistently.

 

But Penn State is not much different. We are dominated even though Penn State is rarely elite when we face them. Their number of losses in a season they faced us in the last 7 match-ups: 4, 3, 5, 4, 2, 4. The time we beat them was the Paterno saga year where their interim guy went 1-3 to end the season (including us) and we were higher ranked at home.

 

I get they are pretty good teams, but 2-16 since 2007...I think there is a lot more than just not being as talented, especially when we have proven to play close games. I just can't get behind shrugging off these games as them just being more talented. They should be winning some of those close games, instead they find themselves losing every time they step on the field.

[PeaveyFury]

Again, Clemson 27 current NFL players / Wisconsin 26 current NFL players. Clemson has two wins over Ohio State and two national championships since UW last beat Ohio State. The Badgers aren't going to match Ohio State in recruiting but that doesn't mean they don't have enough talent to beat them on the field. That has been repeatedly demonstrated by teams equally and less talented than Wisconsin. The improvement needs to come from the playbook, play calling, and game planning. It can be done as other programs have shown.

 

It seems that this is repeating the same point over and over and citing a list of current NFL players, when I'm not even sure said list actually makes your point. How about addressing some of the other, valid counter-points that people are bringing up instead of passing them over?

 

Also, how many of Wisconsin's 27 NFL players are from 9-10 program years ago? How long can you point to guys like Wilson and JJ Watt as indicative of the current levels of talent in the program? How many of those 26 Clemson players are from the last 5 years relative to Wisconsin's? There's more to the story than a chart that DOES show that OSU has nearly twice as many NFL players as Wisconsin....

[tmwiese55]

Yea I'd agree the PSU one is the oddity. Even back in the mid to late 00s we lost a couple in the 40 point area, one at home. For some reason they've had our number and it really shouldn't be the case. I went into that title game fully expecting to win, and after getting up 21 no way they should have lost. I mean really MSU has generally been better than PSU in the last 10ish years and we've done much better vs MSU over that span. UW has simply been a better team than PSU in this span as well. One of those years when PSU was down and had true fresh Hackenberg they came into Madison and beat us in a late season game. They should not be so clearly above us like OSU is. Granted, we have a really small sample on PSU of late but in the one big game they beat us. We should do better vs them but we also so rarely play them it's tough to pinpoint a trend. Looks like we play them in 2021 but then not again for a few more years after.

 

Michigan, well we just beat them 2/3 in spite of all their advantages over us.

 

Also, great post by FTC a few ago.

[MrTPlush]

I guess I look at it and see many other teams on our side of the Big 10 play Ohio State close too...often. Purdue has beaten them three times since 2009.

 

6-7

7-6

5-7

 

Those are the teams Purdue had that beat Ohio State 3 out of their last 6 meetings with them. It seems very strange sub .500 teams that Purdue has can hang with Ohio State, but we can't

[homer]

I guess I look at it and see many other teams on our side of the Big 10 play Ohio State close too...often. Purdue has beaten them three times since 2009.

 

6-7

7-6

5-7

 

Those are the teams Purdue had that beat Ohio State 3 out of their last 6 meetings with them. It seems very strange sub .500 teams that Purdue has can hang with Ohio State, but we can't

 

I guess the question is then why can't Purdue beat everyone else with regularity?

 

And last year's OSU team wasn't that great..particularly on defense. They almost lost to Maryland and Nebraska and should have lost at Penn St.

[RobDeer 45]

I think it's pretty simple. We don't have the top tier athletes that the very best programs get, annually. I'm not taking anything away from our program, it's really really good. It's just not as good as the best. We can beat athletic teams that aren't disciplined. We can beat disciplined teams with equal or lesser athletes. But when a program like Ohio St has both, we struggle. I think the coaching staff is a bit limited in what they can do with their play calling against these teams. Is it better to do what you do best and hope the game stays in your favor, or is it better to try and call a different game that doesn't suit your strengths? If you're asking them to recruit different types of players and play a different type of game, I'd be very hesitant about that. You have to look at our state high school players, and the surrounding states. What they produces best, is OL, DL, and probably Linebackers, fullbacks, TE's. Rarely do we produce elite specialty players that are recruited nation wide. You recruit your strength and then you try to shape your team strategy around that. I think we should all be thankful how strong this program has been for a long time now. We've had chances to join the elites in national title talks, but have come up short. I think you keep doing what you're doing and hopefully things align and we make the playoffs in the future.

 

One area I do think we could potentially do better with our recruiting is at QB. I'm surprised that we've been so weak there. I get it, we are a run first team, but we do have great OL's every year, and QBs would be facing a lot of one on one coverage. My hope is Mertz ends up being legit and hopefully show's other recruits what a good QB can do in this system. Of course I thought Wilson was going to open that up after his year here and that didn't seem to happen.

[tmwiese55]

Well, we do hang with them. We just don't win. It really makes no sense as to how Purdue has beaten them. Kicking ideas, we run such a basic system that it's easy for OSU to stuff our O. Whereas a Purdue at least runs that spread stuff so can catch lightning in a bottle and rip off some big plays. Also, and this comes from OSU people I spent the last 3 days with, is that OSU goes into every game vs UW knowing it's a big game and they need to be ready, basically they don't sleep on UW. Whereas the Purdues and Indianas of the world they just have brain farts against (prior to this year anyway) like what we did with Illinois this year. I actually don't think IU ever beat them in recent years but they've played several games closer than they should be vs them.

 

But really in samples this small and with how each team is different it's tough to come up with much. Like say in the OSU OT game a couple years back they call a couple blatant holds they got away with and we win are we really that different of a program? You can grab 3-6 plays in any game that ends up as close as these games have been that if the ball bounces the other way or a certain borderline penalty goes one way or the other. Vs OSU I'd say our goal (as fans) should be in every game with a chance at the end and you'll eventually pull out some Ws here and there. Generally we've done that, but haven't gotten the Ws. Obviously not this year but I think we have a freak level OSU team on our hands right now. Vs PSU, yea no reason you shouldn't be winning more than losing vs them. Same with MSU. Mich in theory should be better than us, but at this point there's no reason to fear them so continue winning more than losing vs them.

 

Good post by Rob here, pretty much nails it. For QB recruiting, this is another thing PC has done great at. Coan, Wolf, Mertz and the future commits are all very good recruits and above what we're used to. They've also recruited better WR than we've had, they've consistently gotten high rated OL We need to start seeing it on the field from the O, actually execute it.

[MrTPlush]

And last year's OSU team wasn't that great..particularly on defense. They almost lost to Maryland and Nebraska and should have lost at Penn St.

 

And we lost to the terrible Ohio State team of 2011 when we were a Rose Bowl team. Even when we should have won we found a way to lose.

[homer]

And last year's OSU team wasn't that great..particularly on defense. They almost lost to Maryland and Nebraska and should have lost at Penn St.

 

And we lost to the terrible Ohio State team of 2011 when we were a Rose Bowl team. Even when we should have won we found a way to lose.

 

They beat them in 2010 by 13 points.

[MrTPlush]

And last year's OSU team wasn't that great..particularly on defense. They almost lost to Maryland and Nebraska and should have lost at Penn St.

 

And we lost to the terrible Ohio State team of 2011 when we were a Rose Bowl team. Even when we should have won we found a way to lose.

 

They beat them in 2010 by 13 points.

 

I am well aware.

[tmwiese55]

Yup, no reason they should have lost that one in 2011. Two games and the best team UW ever had ruined by not blocking on punts. Forget the hail marys, if they don't give up punt block TDs in both games they win them both and would've been playing for the national title vs a very beatable LSU team. That was it right there. Dumbest part is it happened at MSU and he didn't even change it for the next week, exact same play worked again.

[LouisEly]

Michigan hasn't beaten Ohio State since 2011.

 

The last four years: 62-39, 31-20, 30-27 (2 OT), 42-13.

 

Don't underestimate the impact that bringing Urban Meyer out of retirement had on that program.

[pacopete4]

How do we get Urban Meyer to Wisconsin?

[JosephC]

How do we get Urban Meyer to Wisconsin?

 

1. Give him a zillion dollars.

 

2. Throw all academic standards out the window.

 

3. Pay all players under the table.

 

4. Free tats (that was previous coach but still a solid Ohio State tradition).

 

5. Make sure there is plenty of dope to go around.

 

In other words, pay him and allow him to bring his "SEC-style" of recruiting to Madison.

[JosephC]

Michigan hasn't beaten Ohio State since 2011.

 

The last four years: 62-39, 31-20, 30-27 (2 OT), 42-13.

 

Don't underestimate the impact that bringing Urban Meyer out of retirement had on that program.

 

Not to minimize what Meyer has done, but it's Ohio State and has been that way for a long time. After Tressel got things rebuilt after the Cooper era, he lost a total of 11 games over his last 6 years with the Buckeyes. Meyer has lost 9 games over his last 6 years with the Buckeyes. Both got Ohio State one national championship (Meyer was 12-0 his first year at Ohio State but they were ineligible, which cost him a good chance at a 2nd).

 

It's Ohio State. It's almost hard not be good there when looking at the talent level of the region and basically pitch all the rules out the window. And never, never underestimate the power of free tats!