Badgers Ball Ruminations: Rutgers Recap
Well, well, well, what do we have here? A Big Ten winning streak?? In this economy???
A Rutgers team missing a few key starters from their defense was no match for Braedyn Locke, Tawee Walker, and the rest of the suddenly potent Wisconsin Badgers offensive attack on Saturday afternoon in Piscataway, N.J. The Wisconsin defense held Rutgers scoreless through three quarters and only allowed one touchdown overall as UW won their second straight Big Ten game, 42-7.
UW started the game with a couple of missed big plays (Ricardo Hallman almost INT; Locke missing Will Pauling for a big gain) but still dominated the first quarter. On Wisconsin’s first drive, Locke had a beautiful deep throw to Vinny Anthony, who is fast becoming one of the top deep threats in the Big Ten, which set up a nasty Pauling route for a 16-yard touchdown toss.
The Scarlet Knights made some adjustments in the second quarter and the Badgers made a few mistakes that cost them points, but going into halftime up 14-0 on the road is always a good thing. Credit to Luke Fickell and his staff for making adjustments at halftime to Rutgers’ adjustments and coming out in the third quarter to score touchdowns on two of their first three drives, putting the game well out of reach.
Wisconsin tacked on two more touchdowns in the fourth quarter and are building some serious momentum heading into a House of Horrors game at Northwestern next weekend. There’s a lot of good to get to from what was the best (most complete?) game of Fickell’s tenure in Madison, so let’s get down to business with Week 6 of Badgers Ball Ruminations!
Good Things
I am in no way ready to “hand it to” Phil Longo for anything…but he called an excellent game on Saturday and had the offense humming along at breakneck speeds. The Badgers had 309 rushing yards (6.6 ypc) and 240 passing yards on the day to average 7.3 yards per play. UW converted two fourth downs (one in the redzone from the shotgun when they only needed a yard!) and he also had Locke line up under center a couple of times!
Was Longo pandering to the loudest, most annoying, folks in Wisconsin’s fanbase when he called for a Tawee Walker run out of the Power I (which ended up in the endzone) inside the 10-yard line? Who can say for sure, but possibly!
There is also a semblance of Offensive Identity emerging in Madison as the players have gotten more comfortable with Longo and vice versa. Locke has proved to be fairly adept at throwing accurate deep balls and the running game is benefiting from that threat.
Phil, I have publicly declared a moratorium on hiding in your bushes to throw rotten produce at you for one (1) week. I think this is a big step in our relationship.Look, I’m not happy that Chez Mellusi has suffered so many injuries that he had to basically retire from football earlier this year…but it has allowed Wisconsin to have more of a traditional split of running back carries. Oklahoma transfer Tawee Walker toted the rock 24 times for 198 yards (8.3 ypc) and found paydirt three times.
He seems like one of those RBs that needs to get a bunch of carries to get into a rhythm and then he’ll start busting long runs in the second half. Freshman Darrion Dupree scored his first career touchdown and Cade Yacamelli came on in the fourth quarter to rush for 72 yards on four carries lmao. I love that dude.
There were gaping holes on the ground for much of the game, which brings me to my next point.Wisconsin’s offensive line might be back! After being a weakness for the past couple of seasons, this year’s unit under first-year OL coach A.J. Blazek has been outstanding. They paved the way for a 300-yard rushing day and only gave up one sack (which I’m pretty sure was Locke’s fault) while mostly providing a clean pocket. It was the type of performance that we’ve come to expect from Wisconsin’s offensive line in the past and it’s exciting to see where they go from here.
Braedyn Locke’s interception was a case of him getting too much dip on his chip and trying to make a big play where there wasn’t one. Other than that throw, however, Locke played an almost flawless game against RU. He threw for 240 yards (20-of-28, 71.4%) and a touchdown while adding a touchdown on the ground too. He looked decisive and confident and is making an extremely strong case to be the starting QB next year, regardless of if Tyler Van Dyke comes back.
The weekly Vinny Anthony deep ball is fast becoming my favorite part of every Saturday.
Nice to see Will Pauling back out there scoring a touchdown. Less nice to see him get hurt later in the game and not return.
Trech Kekahuna is a difference maker. Wisconsin could STILL find more ways to get him the ball, but those type of gadget plays weren’t necessary in this one.
I liked the idea of the little shovel pass to Dupree play that UW ran twice, but I think it could be executed a bit better in future weeks.
UW got their one 4th down conversion and went 7-of-14 on 3rd down, while holding Rutgers to 0-of-2 on 4th and 5-of-17 on 3rd. Those are what we like to call The Winning Downs and the Badgers won ‘em.
Heads up play by Preston Zachman to make his second interception of the season. He also led the team with 10 tackles (1.5 TFL).
Shout-out to Elijah Hills, Jaheim Thomas, Braedyn Moore and Christian Alliegro for their respective stops on two separate fourth downs.
While Wisconsin’s defense didn’t make any huge plays that’ll be on the end-of-season highlight video in this one, it was still a rock-solid effort that I’m sure will be praised by the coaching staff during film review. The Badgers forced six three-and-outs (plus one drive that was only one play thanks to the Zachman INT) and only allowed three drives that went over 20 yards. Two of those three drives ended in fourth down stops by UW.
Rutgers eight first half drives ended as follows: punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, downs, punt, field goal blocked. Pretty impressive outing from Mike Tressel’s unit who also kept RU’s star RB Kyle Monangai under wraps (season-low 77 yards from scrimmage) all game.Good day punting from Atticus Bertrams.
Good day blocking field goals by, like, the whole team. I knew the Badgers weren’t a potent special teams block unit, but I didn’t realize that the last time they blocked a field goal was in 2018 (Isaiah Loudermilk) against Penn State.
Bad Things
The inability to field punts cleanly is an Issue. Hunter Wohler was put back there on Saturday to literally just make fair catches and he STILL muffed one. While he recovered it, the fact that dozens and dozens (do not fact check) of Badgers have fumbled punts this season is concerning.
Wisconsin’s defense did not get a ton of pressure on Athan Kaliakmanis but, to be fair, he isn’t a guy who is going to complete over 50% of his passes in any scenario so Tressel’s group may have just been daring him to throw. He went 12-of-32 for 103 yards and a pick so ::shrugs shoulders::
The Badgers offensive line (who have, again, been playing quite well this year) committed four of UW’s five penalties on Saturday. Three of them were pre-snap and two of those (Riley Mahlman’s false start and Jake Renfro’s first false start) stalled Wisconsin drives that ended with a missed field goal and punt, respectively.
These are minor issues against teams like Rutgers and Purdue, but with Penn State and Oregon looming on the schedule the Badgers will find themselves with razor thin margins if they want to pull off an upset.
I’m not 100% sure what happened after the blocked field goal that caused Wisconsin to be assessed a sideline personal foul penalty, but they should, uh, not do that again since it took them from “maybe run a play to try and get into FG range” to “kneel and end the half.”Nathaniel Vakos missed his only field goal attempt of the game. It was a 35-yarder and it never really looked like it was going to go in. He has been mostly good this season, but I’d like to think that anything from 35-yards and in is a make for a Wisconsin kicker.
While this wasn’t “bad” for Wisconsin, the fact that Rutgers had two delay of game penalties on the first plays of two separate drives is just awful stuff all around.
Not stepping on Rutgers’ throat and scoring zero points in the second quarter is a bummer. The Badgers had the chance to make the second half of the game completely academic, but struggled to keep their momentum going in the second 15 minutes. HOWEVAH, the halftime adjustments were good and they made the fourth quarter completely academic instead.
Rutgers was not as good as their 4-1 record coming into the game suggested, but they were better than Purdue, South Dakota, and Western Michigan and winning on the road in the Big Ten is never a given. Seeing the Badgers absolutely blow the doors off the Scarlet Knights was a great sign and shows that UW is, ever so slowly, moving in the right direction.
A quick road trip south to Evanston, Ill. to play the always-better-than-you-think Northwestern Wildcats awaits Wisconsin next weekend and I’m smart enough to not ask for another blowout in that one. Just win, baby, and return home for a massive, Halloween home tilt with Penn State.