Badgers Ball Ruminations: Penn State Recap
The Badgers are who we thought they were.
Here’s what a wrote to end last week’s post:
UW is on an impressive three-game winning streak and the vibes are good. It’s basically the perfect storm for a huge, season-defining, upset.
Wisconsin can’t fuck this up.
PSU isn’t anywhere as good as their lofty ranking suggests. They needed OT to beat an awful USC team two weeks ago and, after their 14-point win at home against Illinois, their “best” win is probably a Week 1 victory at below average West Virginia. The Nittany Lions could also be caught looking ahead to their Nov. 2 showdown with Ohio State in Happy Valley.
There are a lot of intangible-type things that are in Wisconsin’s favor for this game, not the least of which is that James Franklin is a certified bozo of a head coach who makes terrible in-game decisions like he’s Luke Fickell on mushrooms. Fickell got out-coached by Lincoln Riley (aka West Coast James Franklin) in the second half of the USC debacle, so he needs a strong showing against East Coast James Franklin (aka James Franklin) on Saturday night.
Well, if for some reason you are reading this post without having seen the final score of the Wisconsin/Penn State game allow me to be the bearer of bad news: the Badgers fucked it up.
They fucked it up even worse than I thought they could.
I feel like this is going to be a long one, so I’ll spare you a lengthy intro. Let’s get down to business with Week 8 of Badgers Ball Ruminations!
Good Things
After struggling for much of the season, K Nathaniel Vakos made both of his field goal attempts on Saturday night. His first one was from 50 yards out and looked good the moment it left his foot. Hopefully this is the boost of confidence Vakos needs to end the season on a high note.
I’m not sure if it was a designed fake or if P Atticus Bertrams just read the PSU punt block and took off, but his 15-yard scamper for a first down on UW’s first drive was awesome. He averaged 51.4 yards per punt and routinely put Penn State in difficult starting field position.
LB Jaheim Thomas had a nice game, recording nine tackles (one TFL) and getting after the PSU quarterback some.
CB Nyzier Fourqurean had a pair of really impressive open field tackles that forced the Nittany Lions to punt and ended the game with eight tackles and a fumble recovery.
LB Jake Chaney recorded the only sack of the game by either team.
WR Vinny Anthony II had seven catches for 68 yards and WR CJ Williams had a beautiful 33-yard reception to get Wisconsin into the red-zone while down four.
Bad Things
Watching QB Braedyn Locke is maddening. He makes some beautiful throws and looks like he’s in complete control of the offense and then he does the most bone-headed shit imaginable on the very next drive! He is a lock (nailed it) for at least one turnover per game and his pick six in this one was the beginning of the end for Wisconsin’s chances. I keep trying to talk myself into him as QB1, but he isn’t the guy. There is a large enough sample size now and the Badgers never win more than seven games with him as the starter.
UW’s running game was completely ineffectual and the offensive line, which had been a strength all season, was the main culprit. They couldn’t block any of PSU’s myriad formidable defensive linemen and RB Tawee Walker (22 rushes, 59 yards, one TD) couldn’t find any running room all night. Atticus Bertrams, the punter, had the longest rush of the game for the Badgers.
LT Jack Nelson had a particularly poor performance, racking up a pair of penalties including a holding call that negated a 23-yard Trech Kekahuna reception on 3rd and 9 near the end of the first quarter. The Badgers punted two plays later.Locke did not play well, but his receiving corps did not exactly cover themselves in glory either. The amount of dropped passes by UW’s wideouts was staggering and couldn’t possibly have helped Locke get into any sort of rhythm.
The Badgers had a big kick return called back due to a holding penalty that was announced as being on TE Tucker Ashcraft but was apparently on a different UW player.
PSU had to use two different quarterbacks since starter Drew Allar got hurt close to halftime and didn’t return. Between the two of them they completed 25-of-31 attempts for 246 yards and two touchdowns. Wisconsin didn’t have a single pass broken up recorded all game. PSU, on the other hand, had four and also picked off a pass. Which was returned for a touchdown.
RBs Kaytron Allen (7.8 ypc) and Nicholas Singleton (4.1 ypc) basically ran wherever they wanted to all game. Backup dual-threat QB Beau Pribula also picked up 28 yards on six carries (4.7 ypc), extending plays for positive yards when pressured.
I kept seeing people say that Wisconsin’s defense played well and I guess they did compared to Wisconsin’s offense, but otherwise they kind of got shredded. Per GameOnPaper.com, PSU had:
0.16 EPA/Play, 74th percentile
50% Success Rate, 88th
6.35 Yards/Play, 64th
0.40 EPA/Dropback, 85th
57% success on 3rd down (8-of-14)
Scored TDs on their two red-zone trips
22 total first downs
I don’t know, man…seems bad! The fact that they did this without many explosive plays shows that they were just methodically beating the Badgers up on each drive. I mean, PSU gained 419 yards of total offense. That’s bad!
PSU had three separate drives that were longer than 75 yards, all of which ended in touchdowns, and another that would’ve been longer than 75 yards if WR Julian Fleming could catch. Nine plays, 90 yards; 13 plays, 81 yards; nine plays, 76 yards…Wisconsin is supposed to do that type of shit to teams, not the other way around!That is as good of a segue as I’ll get for my final point which is this: I think Luke Fickell might actually be a bad coach.
His one season as interim HC at Ohio State he went 6-7 with his best win being (of fucking course) against No. 12 Wisconsin.
Then at Cincinnati he beat a shitty UCLA team on the road and a sub-.500 Va. Tech team in a bowl in his second year; another shitty UCLA team, this time at home, a ranked UCF, and a sub-.500 Boston College in a bowl in year three; then it was the COVID year which doesn’t count; the following year he beat Indiana, a top-10 Notre Dame, and No. 21 Houston before losing to Alabama in the Playoff; his final year at Cincy and he lost to No. 19 Arkansas, beat Indiana, lost to UCF, No. 19 Tulane, and his team (without him as coach) lost to Louisville in a bowl.
At Wisconsin he has technically won the Guaranteed Rate Bowl against Oklahoma State, although he was the head coach in name only and then his best win after that in Madison is…at Minnesota last year? Home against Rutgers (at 7-6, the only team he beat last year that ended the season with a winning record) last year? Western Michigan (they’re leading the MAC currently!) this year?
While at Wisconsin he has lost to Alabama in blowout fashion at home; blown a huge halftime lead to a terrible, yet ranked, USC team on the road; blown a small halftime lead to No. 3 PSU at home; lost to No. 3 OSU last year; lost at Wazzu; lost at home to Iowa and Northwestern; lost to an Indiana team that would go on to fire their coach; blew a lead against No. 13 LSU in a bowl
The rest of UW’s current season is three rivalry games (two on the road) and a home tilt with undefeated No. 1 Oregon. They need one (1) win for bowl eligibility. Do they get it?
I will continue the rest of my rant outside of the constraints of bullet points. Fickell plays a conservative, cowardly style of football that I absolutely can’t fucking stand. He isn’t consistent about when he goes for it on fourth downs (why not go for it on 4th and 2 from the PSU 47 when trying to take back momentum after PSU scored to make it 7-3? I DON’T FUCKING KNOW!) and he is content to play for field goals when touchdowns are needed. If he has three timeouts and 38 seconds left in the first half will he try and get into field goal range? You fucking know he won’t! He’ll kneel it and count that as a win.
You’ll note that he did exactly this against a reeling Penn State on Saturday night and wouldn’t you know it, his team only scored three points the rest of the way and lost! Can’t wait until they put up the “led No. 3 Penn State by a field goal at halftime” sign on Camp Randall’s facade. That’s just gutless, loser stuff from Fickell and you know what they say: the team takes on the personality of the head coach.
After Locke’s atrocious pick six gave Penn State a lead they’d never relinquish halfway through the third quarter, the Badgers got down into PSU’s red-zone the very next drive thanks to a huge pass play from Locke to Williams. What did the Badgers and Phil Fucking Longo dial up after that?
Tawee Walker one-yard loss
Tawee Walker two-yard gain
Vinny Anthony two-yard reception on the same little rub route they had success with earlier in the drive that PSU clearly knew was coming
4th and 7 from the PSU 15 and Fickell kicks a field goal.
The Badgers only got two more possessions after that: a three-and-out and then their final drive where they turned it over on downs at the PSU 15-yard line, already down 15 points. Play loser football and you get exactly what you deserve.
I think I am ready to admit that Luke Fickell fooled me. I thought he was an excellent hire and that he was going to take Wisconsin to new heights, if not right away, then eventually. I am now of the opinion that he is a fraud and his entire reputation hinges on beating Notre Dame a couple of years ago and nothing else. He made poor coordinator hires, on offense especially, and while I assume he’ll get a chance to fire them and hire new ones…it won’t matter.
With Fickell leading the Badgers in the new-look Big Ten the ceiling is now eight wins and I am absolutely disgusted typing that. He is a very good recruiter and clearly a good salesman of himself but he will never be able to get it done on Saturdays and that is going to be a hard pill to swallow for AD Chris McIntosh, Shadow AD Barry Alvarez, and Wisconsin fans.
Any coach who loses to Lincoln Riley and James Franklin (two coaches who are addicted to doing stupid shit and losing big games) in the same season, while having halftime leads in both games, should not just lose their job…they should lose their freedom. Fickell and Longo should be in jail and Mike Tressel should be forced to move to the top of a mountain in British Columbia, never to be heard from again.
Wisconsin plays Iowa next weekend in the same time slot as the PSU game. Can’t wait for the rest of the nation to be subjected to that absolute slop for three hours!