FB: a tale of two halves
The Badgers pulled away from the worst team in FBS football after halftime but the fact that it took them that long is, uh, concerning.
MADISON — The boos cascaded down on Luke Fickell and his staff as they trotted off the field at halftime Saturday afternoon, sporting an unimpressive and uninspiring 14-10 lead over Middle Tennessee State, and to say I wasn’t vociferously voicing my opinion along with them from my seat in section AA of Camp Randall Stadium would be a lie. UW, to their credit, made adjustments at halftime and scored 28 unanswered second half points to win the game, 42-10.
Wisconsin entered the game as 28.5-point favorites and for over 50% of the game it looked like they might not only fail to cover but fail to even win. The Blue Raiders were coming off a blowout loss to Austin Peay (an FCS team that went 4-8 last year) in their first game and the Badgers were probably hoping to have this wrapped up well before Jump Around. Well, the Badgers were down 3-0 after one quarter and then, with a chance to put things away at the end of the second quarter, Danny O’Neil tried to squeeze a pass to tailback Dilin Jones on some sort of tunnel screen situation and the ball bounced off of Jones’ hands and an offensive lineman’s butt into the welcoming arms of 300-pound Blue Raiders defensive lineman Damonte Smith.
Two plays later MTSU’s QB lofted a pass to Hunter Tipton for a touchdown to make the score 14-10. With one minute left, and all three timeouts remaining, the Badgers got the ball to their own 41 with 20 seconds left and then just…kind of went in to a hurry up offense and kind of just stood around looking confused and then the clock ran out. With Wisconsin’s roster containing the best kicker from 50-plus yards in program history, not trying to get into range to attempt a long-range bomb was baffling.
The confused and frustrated boos of Wisconsin’s crowd serenaded the Badgers into the locker room and only a nice halftime performance by the UW Marching Band turned everyone’s mood around. That vibe shift was short lived due to MTSU taking the second half kick and putting together a 12-play drive that had them at the Wisconsin 24-yard line with a 3rd-and-1 staring them in the face.
RB Jekail Middlebrook plunged ahead for a first down, but the refs went under the hood to take a look at the replay and decided that he was actually short of the line to gain. On 4th-and-1, MTSU gave it right back to Middlebrook and LB Christian Alliegro, with help from a few of his defensive friends, sliced into the backfield to stonewall Middlebrook and give Wisconsin the ball.
Darrion Dupree took the next play 14 yards to UW’s 39-yard line and then a beautifully designed reverse to slot receiver Trech Kekahuna went for 61 yards and a touchdown. In under a minute of game time things had completely flipped on their head and the Badgers, like Kekahuna on his touchdown, were off to the races.
A supremely disappointing first half followed by an efficiently dominant second half? I love to watch an inconsistent football team! It’s actually my favorite thing to do!!
Danny Dimes dominates
In his first career start for the Badgers, backup quarterback Danny O’Neil threw for the most passing yards as a UW debutant since 1951. His trio of touchdown passes were the most since Graham Mertz’s magical 2020 debut vs. Illinois when he nuked the Illini with five scores through the air. O’Neil’s 85.2% completion rate was the best by a Wisconsin signal caller since Mertz recorded an 87.5% mark against Illinois State in 2022.
Here are his stats, because they are impressive to look at all at once:
passing: 23-of-27, 85.2%, 283 yards, long of 58
yards per attempt: 10.5
adjusted yards per attempt: 11.04
TD/INT: 3/1
rushing: 3 attempts for 11 yards
sacks: 0
tackles: 1 (after his interception, which wasn’t his fault, but you absolutely love to see the QB hustling to stop a touchdown)
O’Neil was on time and on target with just about every pass he attempted and, quite frankly, it was a little jarring to see the backup quarterback come in and not have the offense look stuck in the mud. 10 different receivers were targeted (nine recorded receptions) on the game and three pass catchers had four or more receptions on the day, led by tight end Lance Mason (7 catches, 102 yards, 1 TD).
After a full week of practice as QB1, O’Neil looked more comfortable in the pocket and rarely needed to scramble all game. While there were maybe a few more horizontal passes than I would’ve liked, O’Neil was still able to air a couple out and hit transfer WR Jayden Ballard up the sideline, on a beautifully designed and executed play, for a 58-yard score.
Getting Billy Edwards back under center will be paramount to Wisconsin reaching their ceiling this year, but O’Neil has pretty quickly proven that UW’s floor doesn’t fall at all with him in the game and, again, that’s a lot more than we can say for the past few years of backup QB play.
Offensive line reshuffled and you could certainly tell
After the Davis Heinzen disaster class at left tackle in Week 1, the Badgers needed to make some changes up front especially with a new quarterback starting. During practice in the week leading up to Saturday Heinzen was not with the first unit and that stayed the same on game day, but there was another surprise as starting center Jake Renfro was listed on the pregame injury report and didn’t suit up.
With UW down multiple Week 1 starting offensive linemen, the new starting five looked like this:
LT Riley Mahlman (RT last week)
LG Joe Brunner (same position, woooo!)
C Kerry Kodanko (didn’t start last week)
RG Colin Cubberly (didn’t start last week)
RT Emerson Mandell (RG last week)
Let’s start with a little good news! O’Neil wasn’t sacked all game after being taken down three times in Week 1. And, uhhhhh, that’s about it for good news.
Kodanko struggled with snaps all game, including launching one over O’Neil’s head for a loss of 17 yards, MTSU finished the game with seven tackles for loss, and UW’s rushing attack was completely neutered in the first half going for 17 yards on 16 attempts. While things definitely improved in the second half, over half of UW’s rushing yards (78 of 153) came from wide receivers on reverses or jet sweeps.
Running backs Dilin Jones (10 rushes for 36 yards), Darrion Dupree (6 for 25), and Cade Yacamelli (4 for 15) found the sledding tough all afternoon and looking ahead to next week’s opponent (Alabama in case you forgot) you would be forgiven if you shuddered at the thought of their defensive line setting up shop in UW’s backfield.
A lot of offensive line play is about familiarity with the dude next to you and Wisconsin has basically none of that right now. Hopefully Renfro will be healthy enough to play against the Crimson Tide, but there will still be limited continuity between the Big Fellas up front and that can lead to miscommunications and negative plays.
Halftime adjustments!
Wisconsin looked bad in the first half and that falls squarely on the coaching staff (mainly Luke Fickell) failing to get the team mentally prepared to play from the opening kickoff. On no planet are there any teams this version of Wisconsin can “look past” and that line of thinking was only solidified by their meager four-point halftime lead against Middle Tennessee State on Saturday.
When the Blue Raiders methodically marched into UW’s territory to start the second half you could feel the uneasiness in the Camp Randall crowd. However, Alliegro’s big fourth down stop fired the crowd back up and UW’s offense quickly took advantage and scored a touchdown.
Offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes must’ve seen MTSU overpursuing and not being sound on the edges in the first half because he dialed up a number of misdirection plays that went for big yardage and put the Blue Raiders deep in a hole that they were unlikely to climb out of. It is the mark of GOOD coaching to go in at halftime and reevaluate your game plan if it isn’t working instead of being a stubborn dickhead and continuing to jam a square peg in a round hole.
“I take a lot of pride in the fact that we did stick together. It was an ugly first half, but we came in at halftime, the leaders led and was able to flip the script coming out in the second half,” O’Neil told reporters, including friend of the newsletter Jake Kocorowski at
after the game. I still don’t think Fickell is a very good coach, especially on Saturdays, but at least Grimes is able to make adjustments unlike He Who Shall Not Be Named the last two years.I will begrudgingly admit though that Fickell is doing better on fourth downs this year AND that the team did not commit a penalty against MTSU.
The defense was…fine
The Badgers held MTSU scoreless in the second half, recorded 8.0 tackles for loss, and harassed multiple quarterbacks into five sacks and one interception (shoutout Philadelphia’s own Omillio Agard) but they also looked lost in pass coverage in the first half, giving up multiple big plays (two over 30 yards and one other 21-yarder) to a suspect Blue Raiders passing attack. That obviously won’t fly against ‘Bama or the rest of their Big Ten schedule.
On the bright side, the run defense looked good and multiple players have been getting pressure on the QB and behind the line of scrimmage. Hopefully with players rotating in and out and staying fresh on defense they’ll be able to wear down opposing offensive lines throughout games moving forward.
Full highlights below:
My final thought is a bit anecdotal and should be taken with a grain of salt. While the vibes in the stands deteriorated somewhat quickly in the first half it is worth noting that the actual team never appeared down. The sideline was engaged with the action on the field and players celebrated with their teammates after big plays all day.
I mean, just look at them during Jump Around:
They literally had to be waved off the field by a coach because they were having too much fun dancing! Later, freshman Mason Posa was surrounded after getting his first career sack at the end of the game and walk-on Charlie Jarvis was mobbed by teammates after blocking a punt in the fourth quarter.
I am not confident that the game against Alabama will be competitive, but I am confident that the Wisconsin players don’t give a shit what I think and will head down to Tuscaloosa looking to make a statement. I desperately want them to punch the Crimson Tide in the mouth from the first play of the game and make everyone in the country stand up and pay attention to Wisconsin Badgers football for the first time (positively) in years.
It was the worst of halves; it was the best of halves. Hope the latter is a sign of things to come.
What kills me about the pick on the tunnel screen is that Danny threw it so the left tackle and a defensive tackle were screening the ball while Jones was running into the right guard. IF, IF it was caught cleanly four Badger blockers were meeting two linebackers, so the play call could have worked. But that's relying on an RB catching a pass with mustard he couldn't always see while avoiding his big fella.