January Q&A
“From the current Badgers roster, including inbound transfers and incoming recruits, who do you foresee making first team pre-season all-B10?”
Pre-season polls and teams are so subjective as they are at best guesses. Call them educate guesses if you will, but you're basing that guess on outdated information. That's why I was such a Debbie Downer at the beginning of the 2016 season when the Badgers beat "#5" LSU and "#8" Michigan State. They were only ranked because someone thought they were good, and didn't know if they were actually good (spoiler alert: they weren't).
But let's look at the information we have and try to make the most educated guesses we can. We have two returning players who received all conference recognition. Hunter Wohler was 2nd team with the media, and 3rd team with the coaches while Ricardo Hallman was 3rd team with the media. Both have compelling cases to move up the rankings as Rico lead the conference (and the country) in interceptions and Hunter was 2nd in the conference in tackles. However with two returning 1st team corners (Will Johnson, Denzel Burke) Rico's path might be blocked and Hunter for all his ball hawking skills isn't a true safety.
Offensively the easy answer would be Will Pauling, but for as productive as he is and as important as he is to the Badgers offense his role is not that of a flashy down the field receiver. Chez might get some "pity" votes, and potentially a lineman or two but again voters are going to be looking for flash and results over consistency and improvement. That being said I would prefer to win football games over popularity contests!
With the hire of AJ Blazek doesn’t it feel like Luke Fickell is doubling down on meshing air raid with a power rush scheme (I’d assume Longo is bought in on it as well).
Coach Fickell clearly believes in the marriage between the Air Raid passing game, the power spread run game, and everything in between, because if he didn't we would have been replacing a lot more than just a WR coach who left for a higher paying job, and reassigning an offensive line coach. He believes in the marriage because he's seen it work both at his time at Cincinnati, and while looking ahead to joining the B1G (the majority of the conference can fit into those categories in one form or another).
The aim of hiring Coach Blazek was to improve two key areas. First was to strengthen recruiting in the upper Midwest and to maybe re-establishing connections that might have been lost going into last season. Second, and most critically, Coach Fickell wanted to bring in a better teacher to the position. Jack Bicknell Jr. was well liked by his players and his proved to be a strong recruiter but I think he gave his players too much slack and focused more on explaining away problems than getting down and dirty and fixing them fundamentally. Coach Blazek needs to come in and compel the players to compete with each other to get better, and coach them up hard at what they are behind with so this offense can take that very important 2nd step into modern football.
What are things you hear fans say that make it clear to you they’ve never coached football? Or vice versa? I guess I want to hear what the common misconceptions about football exist for the layman.
Before I dig deep into this question, a question I love so much that I am going to make a video on it as well, I want to make a couple points clear. First I am by no means an expert when it comes to football. I have spent the last 22 years digging deep into the sport and trying to learn as much as I can while also trying to be able to translate that knowledge into something my players can understand and replicate. I've done enough in that time to never have to worry about finding a job, but I could always learn more. My knowledge is definitely more on the "book smarts" side of the educational equation so sometimes I lack the on the field context for what I'm trying to teach. Everything is easy on paper. My coaching career has definitely changed how I view the sport as a fan because it is very difficult to separate the fan in me from the coach who is constantly looking for ways to improve myself and my team. However taking an educated view of the game makes it much easier for me to diagnose not only the "why" of how a team succeeds or fails but the "how". Why do teams succeed/fail? They make plays or fail to make plays. How do teams make plays? Execution and play design.
So how does all of this bring us to the root of the actual question. How can I tell an average fan lacks actual football knowledge. The easiest way for me is they speak in absolutes without giving any real insight. "Obviously Luke Fickell is a terrible talent evaluator" and "clearly Phil Longo doesn't know how to coach offense". No it's not clear or obvious you're just reacting on emotion, I know this because all I have to do is ask a one word follow up question I usually don't get a coherent response. If I applied absolutes to your job without any actual knowledge or the ability to articulate a reason for my absolutes I would sound ridiculous, and the same applies to football. Be passionate and be loud as a fan, please I encourage it, but a better fan is the one who can back up their emotions with facts.
The next group of easy to identify fans without first hand knowledge of the sport are the fans I call "screenshot QBs". Credit where credit is due I first learned of this team from former NFL QB JT O'Sullivan who's YouTube Channel The QB School has been a huge inspiration and source of knowledge for me. A screenshot QB looks at a screenshot or a clip of a play and sees what they think is the obvious solution and screams to anyone who will listen why can't the player see what they see...it's that easy why can't they do it "right"? The answer 99% of the time is a variation of "that's not how that play works". Route progressions take a QB's eyes in a certain pattern and maybe that wide open route is there only as a clearing route or not even part of the progression at all. Maybe the play is a split/package play where the QB reads leverage presnap and therefore routes on the backside opening up are not an option. Or simply put the combination of time, resources, and vision make it impossible to see everything at the same time. Don't believe me? I have a challenge for you. Go out to your favorite intersection with your change jar. Walk out to the middle of the intersection and dump your change. I just bought something from you for $4.21, and I gave you a $5...now make my change.
Thank you to all of you who asked question. All I can do is give you my thoughts and opinions based on what I see and what I know. You don't like what I answered? That's great and I hope you take the time to come up an educated rebuttal and you bettered yourself as a fan!