Duke's Mayo Bowl: Wisconsin vs Wake Forest game thread

[PeaveyFury]

Using timeouts here is pretty craptastic by WF....

[AKCheesehead]

Somehow if a coach is going to get a Mayo bath it should be Bielema.

 

He just calls that 'Saturday.'

 

 

 

Maybe sometime he can get Illinois to the Mahoneyes Used Cooking Oil Bowl...

[homer]

Our defense needs to work on their blocking after interceptions.

 

Actually I thought the guys with the ball were at fault. Burks and Wilder should have scored. But I guess that's why they are on defense.

[PeaveyFury]

Good call on Burks- as that unfolded I though he'd have been better off slowing up a bit to let the d-lineman that was slightly in front of him actually make a block.

[homer]

yeah he outran his blocker. And Wilder just chose to ignore the fact he had a blocker and cut way across the field.

[yourout]

Hartman is a good enough tackler to play both ways next year as a safety.

[adambr2]

Well it isn't the season any of us envisioned but at least they end it on a positive note.

[FVBrewerFan]

I pay somewhat close attention to college football, and I had no idea OJ Mayo ad a bowl game. Even more shocked mayo is what he puts in his bowl these days.

[owbc]

Well it isn't the season any of us envisioned but at least they end it on a positive note.

 

Yep, who knows how good this team would have actually been under normal circumstances but it's good to know that a mediocre Big Ten team can still steamroll a mediocre ACC team.

[homer]

I'm just glad the young guys got more practice and game reps. I saw a lot of freshmen and redshirt freshmen out there (Mertz, Engram, Witt, Logan Brown, Chandler, Dike, Berger, Lytle, Herbig, etc. etc.)

[PinaMadness]

Welp!

 

[yourout]

Welp!

 

 

 

Wow....what a 2020 thing to do.

[PeaveyFury]

Certainly falls in-line with my opinion on how important that is for the trophy case.

[owbc]

They "fixed" it...

 

[PeaveyFury]

They "fixed" it...

 

 

Even MORE in line with my feelings about the prestige of the trophy....

[AKCheesehead]

I think now that it's been fixed, it absolutely belongs in the trophy case. Don't change a thing. Leave it there for 100 years.

[JosephC]

I don't think I've seen a QB meltdown like that since Brett Favre retired.

[igor67]

He did start telegraphing the Farve-esque performance with all of those over throws in the 2nd quarter. The announce team was pretty terrible. It really was like they were handed the roster at 8AM this morning. The bias in terms of talking about the other team would have at least been understandable (sort of) if we were playing a top 10 SEC team or other big name program, but Wake Forest at 4-4 on the season?

It really seemed like the lack of D-line depth hurt the defense, they stonewalled well on the running game but there was no pass rush.

[homer]

https://247sports.com/college/wisconsin/Article/Wisconsin-badgers-win-Dukes-Mayo-Bowl-over-Wake-Forest-behind-interceptions-158077326/

 

Good article on how the defense knew what Wake would do on 3rd down after those first two drives. This is how Nelson and Wilder got their picks.

 

Wisconsin defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard likes to tell his players he’s throwing them lobs and it’s their job to finish the play. On Wednesday at Bank of America Stadium, the lob was a tendency the Badgers coaching staff noticed in film. On third and medium distance, Wake Forest wanted to throw to its best receiver on an option route.

 

So Leonhard lined his defense up to force a particular option. With the defensive back lined up outside the receiver, Wake Forest would run a route turning in toward the defense, right where Leonhard had told his defensive backs to be waiting. Badgers safety Scott Nelson caught the lob on the run and returned the interception to the two-yard line, granting Wisconsin one its many short fields in a 42-28 win over Wake Forest in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.

 

“We kind of knew where he wanted to throw the ball,” said linebacker Jack Sanborn. “And especially in that low hook zone, we knew that was coming on third down and guys did a great job breaking on the ball.”

[LouisEly]

Uncharacteristically poor defense from UW today.

This didn't age well either.

 

But that's how these up-tempo offenses work. They are designed to get big plays and often do... but they also result in a lot of mistakes made by the offense as well. It's sloppy football, and it's why I absolutely HATE teams that run that type of offense. Just watch Ohio State; they run that up-tempo offense, but they make a lot of mistakes as well and that's why, despite all their talent, they lay a giant egg one game a year (Purdue 2018, Iowa and Oklahoma in 2017, Penn State and Clemson in 2016, almost to Indiana this year).

 

Over the course of 60 minutes these up-tempo teams will get some big plays and cause the defense to make some mistakes; it happens. However, a good defense will eventually capitalize on the mistakes the offense makes. The up-tempo offense also doesn't give their defense much time to rest and/or get coaching on the sidelines, resulting in giving up a lot of points in the 2nd half. This game is a textbook example of how games against these up-tempo teams typically go.

[LouisEly]

Weird season and all, but it really is remarkable how bad this team ended up being.

Here's who they were without in the bowl game:

 

Offense:

Starting QB (Coan), LT (Van Lanen), C (Lyles), RG (Bruss), and both starting WRs (Davis, Pryor); 2nd string RB (Watson), 4th string RB (Guerendo), 3 additional backup WRs (Mustapha, Bracey, Krumholz) and an additional backup OL (Tippman)

During the game, lost their starting LG who was playing LT (Dietzen)

(And Mertz and Berger haven't been able to practice much the last two weeks due to concussion and COVID)

 

Defense:

Starting DT (Loudermilk), OLB (Green-May), CB (Wildgoose), S (Pearson), 2nd string DT (Hennigsen), OLB (Goetz), CB (Melvin), and another backup S (Cone) and backup DL (Thompson)

During the game, lost starting DT (Benton)

 

It's pretty remarkable that they played as well as they did, and would have won by 21 if not for a garbage-time TD against their 3rd/4th string defense.

[CheezWizHed]

[sarcasm]Wisconsin football owes me a debt of gratitude...[/sarcasm] I was traveling during the game and flipped on the game when we were down 21-14. So I'm certain it was my presence that turned the tide of the game and willed the interceptions.

 

For the trophy, I think they just sweep up the pieces, put it in a Mayo jar, and put that in the trophy case. Good story for years to come.

[PeaveyFury]

Uncharacteristically poor defense from UW today.

This didn't age well either.

 

I guess we'll disagree on that. They gave up over 500 yards to a middling ACC team with a .500 record. Yes, they made the big plays they needed to at the end. But I highly doubt you'll find anyone inside the Wisconsin program that would characterize the defense's performance as anything beyond disappointing. As noted, they've been really good this year, but the performance on Wednesday was poor overall relative to their typically high standard.

 

 

It's pretty remarkable that they played as well as they did, and would have won by 21 if not for a garbage-time TD against their 3rd/4th string defense.

 

I'm glad they won, undoubtedly. But, my comment wasn't only applicable to this particular game, it was a commentary on the season as a whole. This was a team that had high expectations and was a top 10 team throughout much of the early season, and it took a rescheduled game against Minnesota and a comeback vs. a middling ACC team to finish over .500. Yes, there are dozens of reason for why the season unfolded the way it did- injuries, COVID cancellations and players missing games, player opt-outs, a rough transition to Rudolph calling plays, etc. But in the end, the season was a disappointment, and in some cases, it was a bad product out on the field.

[LouisEly]

I guess we'll disagree on that. They gave up over 500 yards to a middling ACC team with a .500 record.

 

That middling ACC team was 28th in the nation in yards/game, and only 11 Power 5 conference teams had more yards/game this year than they did. 122 of those 500+ yards came in garbage time in the 4th quarter when UW was up by 21 and was playing their 2nd/3rd/4th string defense. Hell, they were playing their 2nd/3rd string defense most of the game as for most of the game they were without 3 of their top 4 DL and 2 of their top 4 OLBs (specifically, 2 of their only 3 scholarship upper-classmen OLBs). Burks was the only healthy non-Freshman OLB available. I don't know how well you expect 2nd/3rd string front-seven players to do against one of the best offenses in the country, but they met my expectations.

[PeaveyFury]

I guess we'll disagree on that. They gave up over 500 yards to a middling ACC team with a .500 record.

 

That middling ACC team was 28th in the nation in yards/game, and only 11 Power 5 conference teams had more yards/game this year than they did.

 

In the end, Wake was the 10th best team in a conference not known for its depth or defensive aptitude. It's perfectly fine if they met your expectations, but they didn't meet mine, and again, I'd bet they don't internally feel particularly good about it either. For a team that has basically lived on their defensive prowess over the past ~8 seasons, for one the defense was the main reason they didn't have a lead in that game until nearly the 4th quarter. As I said, uncharacteristically poor considering the bar they've previously set.

 

And again, they CLEARLY made the plays they needed to make in the end to win, which is deserving of kudos.