FB: I don't know what I expected

Wisconsin traveled to SEC country for their final non-conference game and got stomped out by Alabama.

I opened my laptop on Sunday morning and my partial game notes for Saturday’s Wisconsin/Alabama contest stared back at me. Despite watching the entire game, my game notes are “partial” because I slammed said laptop shut after the Crimson Tide scored their second touchdown because anyone who had ever watched either of these teams play before knew the game was over at that point.

The Badgers have now played the Tide in back-to-back seasons, once at Camp Randall Stadium and once at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Wisconsin lost both matchups, despite showing early promise of being able to pull off the upset maybe if things go exactly right for the final 80% of the game in both, and I’m not even sure if we learned anything useful from either game.

On paper, Alabama is a better team than Wisconsin. In the mind of the average college football fan, Alabama is a better team than Wisconsin. On the actual field, regardless of where it is located, Alabama is a better team than Wisconsin. We didn’t need one game, let alone two, to figure that out.

This was the dictionary definition of a “Dead Dove, Do Not Eat!” game.

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Last year at an electric Camp Randall, the Badgers received the opening kickoff against Alabama and were steadily marching down the field, quickly getting the ball to midfield. You may remember that the next play after reaching the 50-yard line was a Tyler Van Dyke scramble that resulted in a 15-yard defensive holding penalty to move UW into field goal range.

Oh yeah, Van Dyke also tore his ACL on that play and never played a down for the Badgers again.

For the second straight year Wisconsin lost their transfer starting QB to injury and we were all subjected to the Braedyn Locke Experience again. Just to remind you of what that was like, he took over for Van Dyke with 1st and 10 on the Alabama 35-yard line and moved Wisconsin all the way to the Alabama 35-yard line after going 1-of-3 passing for zero yards and a near interception on third down. Nathaniel Vakos kicked the 53-yard field goal and UW went up 3-0 though!

UW’s defense forced a missed field goal by Alabama and then Wisconsin’s running game started to churn out some yards. Seven yards, two yards, four yards and a first down, 11 yards and into Alabama territory! The first pass “attempt” of the drive resulted in a Locke sack and fumble (recovered by Wisconsin wooooo!) but two plays later he found Vinny Anthony for 13 yards which set up a 4th and 1 from the Bama 39-yard line.

Luke Fickell correctly decided to go for it and Phil Longo had Locke line up under center and fed it to a full back to gain a yard and keep Wisconsin’s drive and momentum going. Wait. Hold up. That’s not how that went at all!

Wisconsin lined up in shotgun and Tawee Walker was first hit three yards behind the line of scrimmage before valiantly making it back there for no gain and a turnover on downs. Watch here if you really hate yourself. It should go right to the play, but it’s at 3:33 of the clip if it doesn’t.

83 seconds later the Tide found the endzone to take a 7-3 lead that would eventually be a 21-3 halftime lead and then a 42-10 final score. A second quarter fumble by Chez Mellusi (after a 21-yard gain) led to Bama’s second touchdown and after a late second quarter missed field goal by Vakos, Bama took two plays and 17 seconds to go 73 yards for their third TD to wrap things up before intermission.

Now, I don’t go back to last year’s debacle just because I’m a masochist. I did it because, while Wisconsin technically did “better” against Alabama this season, the game still followed the same exact script!

UW received the opening kickoff on Saturday and steadily marched the ball into Alabama territory. However, Danny O’Neil’s 3rd-and-4 completion to Chris Brooks Jr. for a first down was called back because of offensive pass interference on Trech Kekahuna who very blatantly started to block/pick Brooks’ defender well before O’Neil threw the ball. On the ensuing 3rd-and-19, O’Neil was sacked and Wisconsin had to punt it away.

However, Wisconsin’s defense stopped Alabama on 4th-and-2 near midfield! That gave O’Neil and company the ball in plus territory to start!! Predictably, O’Neil threw an interception, where it looks like he was completely fooled by the defense Alabama was playing, on the first play of the drive and the Tide drove right down the field and scored a touchdown on a 4th-and-1 rush from the goal line to make it 7-0. You can’t be giving teams like Alabama re-dos because they rarely make the same mistakes twice.

It was 21-0 by halftime and 28-0 a mere 15 seconds into the second half. An impressive 95-yard kick return by Vinny Anthony got the Badgers on the board, but Alabama answered with another TD on the following drive. The game was figuratively over in the second quarter, but the final score ended up 38-14 in favor of the Crimson Tide.

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I often wait to write these posts so I am not a prisoner of the moment and just spew rage-filled expletives for 1,000 words. We are now 24 hours from kickoff of the game on Saturday and I’ve realized that I wasn’t even really “rage-filled” after the game. I knew how it was going to go. You knew how it was going to go. The only people who didn’t “know” were inside Wisconsin’s locker room and I’d imagine in they were given truth serum we’d hear a different answer.

We didn’t learn anything in the grand hierarchy of college football on Saturday. Alabama is still better than Wisconsin. That is an indisputable fact currently and I hate it. So what did we learn? (NSFW: language in Burn After Reading clip)

I doubt Wisconsin will schedule Alabama in football any time soon, so I suppose they’ve learned “not to do it again.” But otherwise? We’ve still learned very little about what Wisconsin is under Luke Fickell. They’ve yet to beat a ranked team with Fickell in charge and his record is only above .500 in Madison (15-14 overall, 8-10 Big Ten) due to a 2022 Guaranteed Rate Bowl victory where he was the head coach in name only.

He lost the only bowl game he’s made at Wisconsin and also presided over last year’s 5-7 abomination of a season that resulted in no bowl game for the first time in 23 seasons. The Badgers are in possession of zero of their three rivalry trophies and were straight up embarrassed in all three trophy game losses last year. He spent the first two years of his tenure trying to make the Phil Longo offense happen (which anyone with half a brain could’ve told you wasn’t going to work without a first round talent at QB) at Wisconsin and that square peg couldn’t even find the round hole, let alone fit in it.

To be fair, Fickell canned Longo during the season last year and hired Jeff Grimes (who has undoubtedly been better) as offensive coordinator, but that was still too late of a move. Mike Tressel’s defense has been better this year and they used the transfer portal to address their need of bigger bodies on the d-line, but Alabama just torched them through the air instead of the ground.

So where does that leave us?

Wisconsin delivered a better performance against Alabama this year but still got blown out. The team, in general, looks more “bought in” to whatever the coaches are selling (which IS important because last year’s team would’ve probably packed it in at halftime and not scored at all) this year but they’ve still lost their only difficult non-conference contest and took over half of the game to pull away from a dreadful Middle Tennessee State team at home. For the third straight year their transfer starting quarterback is injured and the offensive line is a mess. The defense seems alright but more in a top-10 in the conference way and not top-10 in the country way.

Is this where we all expected to be in Year 3 of Luke Fickell? Staring down an absolutely-no-doubt-about-it-100%-must-win game at home against fucking Maryland? Offense intended, Terps.

I feel like the following should now be the median Wisconsin fan’s take: Luke Fickell’s seat is merely warm at this moment but it gets turned up to blazing hot if Maryland comes in to Madison and leaves with a win. The only way UW potentially makes a bowl game this year is if they beat Maryland. The only way you don’t have a complete fan revolt that results in Iowa and Ohio State having more support at Camp Randall than Wisconsin is if they beat Maryland. Honestly, the only way we aren’t in the midst of another coaching search in a couple of months is if they beat Maryland.

Hope the Badgers have a good week of practice!

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Since this is already well over 1,000 words I’ll make my thoughts from the actual game quick and in bullet points.

• I thought Jeff Grimes called a good game on offense. It isn’t his fault that Alabama is more talented at every position.

• Wisconsin’s run defense was as stout as ever and I really liked how they defended in the trenches.

• Vinny Anthony is so dynamic on kick returns. I hate that I couldn’t even get excited over his touchdown because the game had been over for so long.

• After a great start to the season in the penalties committed department, the Badgers shot themselves in the foot multiple times against Alabama. The Kekahuna OPI was brutal as was the Mason Reiger roughing the passer penalty on a third down stop at the beginning of the second quarter. Alabama scored a 43-yard TD on the literal next play.

• Starting center Jake Renfro is banged up and probably will be the rest of the season. Kerry Kodanko is a disaster at center (one snap taken; one sack allowed) and can’t play there anymore.

• Offensive line play overall was substandard yet again. This contributed to the poor rushing numbers but I’m starting to wonder if the Badgers’ running backs room is as good as we thought before the season.

• QB Danny O’Neil looked very much like a young, backup quarterback in his first road start in an extremely hostile environment.

• Pass defense was putrid and Ty Simpson surgically picked them apart all game. Ricardo Hallman fancies himself an NFL-caliber player but got absolutely barbecued all afternoon by Alabama’s actual NFL-caliber receivers. This is a week after he couldn’t lock down MTSU’s wideouts who might not even make an All-Sun Belt team.

• Linebacker Tackett Curtis is an absurd athlete who plays hard on every snap but it seems like he is constantly out of position and unable to diagnose what the offense is running.

• LB Christian Alliegro continued his solid season with 4 tackles and a sack.

• A sign of how far Wisconsin has fallen in the opinion of other fan bases? There were hundreds and hundreds of visible empty seats in the upper deck of Bryant-Denny on TV. An SEC vs. Big Ten game, on campus, in the regular season should draw an over capacity crowd, but the Tide fans treated Wisconsin like Wisconsin treats Akron. Sad.