MADISON, Wis. – Luke Fickell had direct comments on Wisconsin’s 24-10 loss to Northwestern on Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium. Fickell, clearly frustrated as his first season in charge of the program comes to an end, described his team’s performance with words like “embarrassing” and “horrible.”
“There’s not a single complementary thing we’re doing right now, and I don’t think we’ve done that in the last couple of weeks to be honest,” Fickell said.
Wisconsin is 5-5 (3-4 Big Ten) and is simply fighting for a bowl spot – nowhere near the team that once harbored championship aspirations and was picked as a Big Ten West favorite in the preseason. The question is: why was it so inconsistent?
Here are five theories about what happened this season:
Play calling and scheme don’t fit
Offensive coordinator Phil Longo has had great success in his previous stints, including at Ole Miss and North Carolina. Longo expressed confidence that players would adapt quickly to his system, citing the success he had in his first season with FCS Sam Houston program after the previous staff implemented the triple option. But this Wisconsin season fell far short of any standard. The Badgers are averaging 22.2 points per game, the lowest for the program since 2004. They did not score a touchdown in a game for the first time in three years.
Longo has spoken several times about letting talent dictate his offense. But he seemed unable to find the recipe for success. Wisconsin didn’t pass the ball consistently or run the ball effectively. Wisconsin’s offensive line was no better in this system compared to the previous one. When Fickell was asked after the Northwestern game how much the team’s lack of identity had hurt on both sides of the ball, he said the following:
“I think it hurts us offensively. We’re trying to find a way to achieve some balance that we don’t have right now. There are things you want to do and there are things you suddenly realize you can’t do. And it makes it really difficult when you have an idea of what you want your identity to be. But when you get into it, you start to realize, I don’t know if you can do this. So we need to be better able to adapt that identity and find ways to win football games now.”
GO DEEPER
“This is embarrassing”: Wisconsin’s season is quickly turning into a nightmare
That felt like a pretty damning statement about what we’re seeing from Wisconsin’s offense. I’m thinking of Wisconsin’s fourth-and-1 play at the Iowa 13-yard line, when the Badgers ran a play under center for the third time this season. Although there were four tight ends in the game, no one blocked preseason All-American cornerback Cooper DeJean, who came off the edge and dropped running back Braelon Allen for a 1-yard loss.
Wisconsin isn’t particularly good at the things it used to excel at, but the Badgers don’t seem to be particularly good at implementing the kind of changes Longo wants to implement either. On the same play, Wisconsin faced a third-and-2 at its own 14-yard line. Longo had quarterback Braedyn Locke — who was in the game as a backup due to Tanner Mordecai’s injury — fielding a shotgun snap with an empty backfield and five wide receivers. Locke threw a pass that hit Iowa defensive back Joe Evans’ helmet and fell incomplete. There was never any danger of a run.
Longo has preached consistent success in the long run. It’s easy to play armchair quarterback when opportunities are missed, but too often it seems like Wisconsin is fighting an uphill battle. Was the best way to beat Iowa by passing the ball 50 times – including only eight times on the final possession, when the Badgers were actually two possessions behind? Coaches have talked about crowd balance in terms of yardage, not a 50:50 run-pass ratio. But for most of this season there hasn’t been much balance or success.
The staff is not good enough
Fickell made his expectations clear after Wisconsin lost to Washington State in Week 2, saying he wouldn’t blame the fact that this was the first year for a new offense and defense.
“The reality is that we have enough talent to win,” he said at the time. “We can play well enough to win. And I don’t think anything should hold us back.”
Ten games into the season, however, it seems clear that Wisconsin isn’t talented enough to compete for the championships this program is seeking. Many of the players who still form the backbone of this team have had a series of disappointing seasons. Since the start of the 2020 season, Wisconsin is just 25-18 overall and 16-15 in the Big Ten.
Wisconsin’s tight ends group has caught a total of 10 passes for 77 yards with one touchdown in the last seven games. A highly touted wide receiver group has been largely disappointing outside of Cincinnati transfer Will Pauling. The offensive line isn’t anywhere near the level that Badgers fans expect. Left tackle Jack Nelson, an NFL Draft prospect, was penalized a Big Ten-best 12 times this season, including three times against Northwestern on Saturday. And the Badgers don’t appear to have any reserves playing at a high enough level to push for playing time, as the same five starters continue to occupy the field. Mordecai, who put up big numbers as a two-year starter at SMU, has just three touchdown passes on 145 throws.
Wisconsin’s defense, meanwhile, might rank in the top 25 nationally in scoring defense (19.6 points per game) and other categories, but that’s no indication of the struggles they’ve had. James Thompson Jr. is the only defensive lineman with more than one sack, the inside linebackers struggled with speed on the edges and the defensive backs were burned for big plays on multiple occasions – including two touchdowns against Northwestern.
Wisconsin was active in the transfer portal this offseason, bringing in 15 scholarship transfers. Some are permanent fixtures in the lineup, including cornerback Nyzier Fourqurean as well as slot corner Jason Maitre, wide receiver Bryson Green, kicker Nathanial Vakos, offensive lineman Joe Huber, Mordecai and Pauling. But it wasn’t enough to lift Wisconsin. The Badgers will likely have to turn to the portal again this offseason to significantly improve their position, even though this year was telling in that it didn’t deliver any sure results.
Will Pauling has caught 56 passes for 596 yards this season. (Jeff Hanisch / USA Today)
Injuries have derailed progress
It’s not like Wisconsin looked great early in the season with a healthier team. The Badgers lost at Washington State, led Buffalo 14-10 at halftime and were tied 7-7 at halftime against Georgia Southern. But as we explore all the possibilities as to why something went wrong, the complaints of key players must also be part of the equation.
Would this season have been different if Chez Mellusi and Braelon Allen were able to stay healthy? Mellusi, whom Longo called “arguably our most explosive player,” scored touchdowns in each of his first three games before suffering a fractured left leg against Purdue. He certainly seemed like a perfect fit for Longo’s system given his speed, agility and strength, and the Badgers lost something both on the field and within the team when he left.
Allen ran hard and effectively without Mellusi, averaging at least 4.8 yards per carry over the next month. However, against Ohio State, he suffered a left ankle injury that forced him to miss the Indiana game and limited him to three runs against Northwestern. Wisconsin’s third- and fourth-string running backs, Jackson Acker and Cade Yacamelli, aren’t at the level of the team’s front two, and it showed.
Mordecai breaking his right hand against Iowa didn’t help, as Locke only completed 50 percent of his passes in Mordecai’s place. Wisconsin’s tight ends were decimated by the losses of Jack Eschenbach and Clay Cundiff, who retired for medical reasons, as well as the departure of Jack Pugh for personal reasons. Riley Nowakowski missed time early in the season with a foot injury.
Center Jake Renfro, the projected starter in the spring, hasn’t played a snap all season. If Renfro hadn’t suffered two injuries, his inclusion in the lineup might have at least allowed Tanor Bortolini to stay on guard and improve Wisconsin’s interior defense. The coaches didn’t want to make sweeping changes on the O-line after Renfro was cleared to return. There were also some personnel issues on defense, with defensive lineman Isaiah Mullens sitting out this season and Air Force transfer Michael Mack II’s waiver from the NCAA to play immediately.
Coaching needs to improve
Safety Hunter Wohler provided one of the most impassioned postgame interview sessions in a long time following the Northwestern loss, praising the team for being soft, flat and lacking energy. He refused to blame the coaches, saying nothing they could have done in preparation would have changed the outcome of the game. But it is the responsibility of the coaching staff, especially Fickell, to make sure the players are prepared. Fickell took responsibility for Wisconsin’s loss to Northwestern as the Wildcats scored touchdowns on each of their first three possessions to put the game away.
“It’s embarrassing and I’m to blame for the guys not being ready at any stage of the game,” Fickell said.
Fickell himself made some decisions during games that were detrimental to Wisconsin. Against Northwestern, he decided to punt on fourth-and-3 at Northwestern’s 42-yard line early in the second quarter because he didn’t want to put his struggling defense in a bad situation (which also says a lot about his perspective) . the ability to carry out the crime). So Wisconsin stumbled and Northwestern went right down the field and scored a touchdown to take a 21-3 lead.
During the Indiana game, he forgot to make two 50-yard field goals because kicker Nathanial Vakos was not fully healthy. Backup Nate Van Zelst, who hit a 47-yarder in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl last season, did not play. Wisconsin elected to punt once and turned the ball over on downs on another possession in a game decided by 6 points.
Every coach wants to have some decisions back at the end of the year, and Fickell is probably no different. The bigger question as the offseason approaches is whether he will consider making changes to his staff if Wisconsin finishes the year in the same stagnant manner.
Neither the offense nor the defense played consistently enough to be too confident about the future. Wisconsin’s defense, for example, ranks 79th nationally in third-down conversion defense after Northwestern converted its first 10 third-down opportunities. That’s the worst mark for the program since at least 2009. Wisconsin has finished in the top five nationally in this category seven of the last 11 years.
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Wisconsin Takeaway: After hitting a new low against Northwestern, will the Badgers make a bowl?
Team chemistry concerns
Here’s one that I didn’t think would be much of a talking point this season, but it clearly is after the loss to Northwestern. Fickell and several players talked about who wanted to participate in the program and who didn’t. Have players already ignored Fickell’s messages?
“I think there are some people buying in and we need to get everyone,” Wohler said. “This game is not with one or two people. It happens with an entire team. Whether you’re playing, whether you’re starting on Saturdays or whether you’re running a scout team during the week, it takes everyone. It is clear that we are not all on the same page.”
Wohler said he saw a lack of effort and care from some players and, as a team leader, takes responsibility for not confronting them. It’s difficult to know exactly who he means. With the increase in transfer portal activity each season, teams will look different from year to year than ever before, and Jelling is a crucial and perhaps overlooked component to success. When asked how he would find out who else wanted to participate in the program, Fickell replied, “We’ll find out this week.”
“We’ve just hit rock bottom,” Wohler said. “And when you hit rock bottom, you take a long, hard look at yourself.”
(Top photo: Mark Hoffman / USA Today)