The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Iowa Edition

It's hard to be optimistic after showing is like this.

It's hard to be optimistic when you see signs of life in the offense and, more importantly, the program. They may not necessarily be moving in the right direction as fast as we wanted, but they are at least showing signs that it can work. You have a collection of "fans" and "experts" trying to raise the five alarm fire and the chants of "fire Fickell" and "fire Longo" screaming about how this is exactly why we need a Wisconsin guy because they know how important Iowa is to the Badgers. It's hard when people who say they're fans of a team are actively rooting for the team to lose. But what is disheartening to feel like you're the only one who sees the signs of life. Call me a hopeless homer, call me a coach who won't actually put blames on the coach, call me what you will. It sucks to see the experiment you have been waiting for for 20 years not work out (in the short term).

Now, let's be clear. We did not execute; the offense looked bad at times. but when you play against a good defense with an offense full of underachievers who haven't found their identity that's exactly what's going to happen. When All American players make All American plays that's what's going to happen. It's a team that has obvious holes on the roster, especially on the offensive side, and holes that a handful of transfers who came in as backups from their previous spots can't be expected to fill day one. Time will tell if we actually are going in the right direction with the program.

What I see is a team that is going through growing pains, and the growing pains are going to last a lot longer than we thought. I was caught up in the hype as well, but now, I'm coming back down to reality, and the reality is this: like it or not, the air raid is working at Wisconsin. It's just making the same level of mistakes as it did last year under the Paul Chryst's "pro style offense". But it seemed like last year we accepted we were going to play bad, because it's Wisconsin football and we shouldn't expect too much. Now Luke Fickell wants to make the playoffs and all of a sudden if it's not 500 yards a game and 40 points it's a disaster. The more I write this the more I can feel the reaccuring them and the more I have to tell myself to move on or I'm going to throw my already bad laptop out the winder.

Okay, enough with the inner cranial therapy session I'm having here, and let's get into the Good, and the Bad, and the Ugly of Wisconsin vs. Iowa.

The Good - Braedyn Locke stepping in in his first meaningful playing time this season and shows the potential that we saw during the Launch. I thought he showed good pocket presence, and poise beyond his age and experience level. He showed control of the offense, and that is a big step for a redshirt freshman. I repeat a redshirt freshman.

I like what he brings to the offense with his willingness to hang in the pocket and push the ball down field. With a full week with his skill set in mind I am positive that a solid game plan can be built around him. Going forward it is going to be a good opportunity to show not where Wisconsin is going to be this year, but where Wisconsin is going to be in the future because Braedyn Locke is the prototype of the type of quarterback we want in the system in terms of arm strength, accuracy, and intelligence.

The Bad - Tanner Mordecai's injury is a season changer. He was brought in because we were young at the quarterback position, and we had players who were talented but weren't ready to be a starters in the B1G right away, and obviously, that showed. Who knows how long he's going to be out? I haven't seen any indication to show me that he'll be back anytime soon. So it's the Braedyn Locke show, and unfortunately, Tanner Mordecai's positive strengths hid some of the deficiencies that this offense has. With him gone, some of the issues that we have like the inability to create separation on routes, pass blocking, and run blocking in space are going to come to the forefront and become much bigger issues than they were in the past. It's going to take a lot of game planning and a lot of mental manipulation of the defense to make up for the losses in leadership, poise, and moxie that Tanner Mordecai brought to the offense. So it will be very interesting to see the direction that we're going, and I'm a little nervous to think about it.

The Ugly - There is a lot to unpack here. The offensive line looked bad again which has been a recurring theme all season that anyone with a trained eye can see. Tanor Bortolini my lord...the snaps were not as inaccurate but slow, and I do not know why we have not seen Jake Renfro yet, but he needs to play. Bortolini is not the answer, not only in terms of his snaps, but his blocking has regressed significantly in the last two weeks. Riley Mahlman, and Jack Nelson are still liabilities in pass protection beyond a quick top gun drop. Michael Furtney is still a slow plotting right guard. Joe Huber is a serviceable left guard, but he was brought in to be a backup, and he's being forced to start. That's not a good sign.

So you were probably expecting me to pile on the offensive line, but are you ready for this? We have receivers who still can't read leverage and can't get open. Reading leverage and having situational awareness with an experienced quarterback is vital because he knows where the ball should be and you have to be there, and your excuse for not can't be "but that's what the playbook said."

We have a starting running back who is still obviously hurt, and his backup is not at the level that he needs to be to be a B1G starter, and we have no change of pace. What about Cade Yacamelli? As much as we rave about his "skill set" I need to ask...how many of us have actually seen him play? Regardless of the why our skill positions struggle the answer is painfully obvious. The roster is not ready to take the next step, and it doesn't matter what offense we are running. You imagine this offense running last year's playbook?

You want to know what the funny thing is with this whole situation? As bad as we think things are going right now, we are outpacing last year's offense, and that's the sad statement of the program that we had in the previous years. Last year it was it was Iowa's offense with "better talent". And now we're trying to run Washington State's offense with less talent or Penn State's offense with less talent. It's going to take a major overhaul next season in terms of recruiting and the transfer portal to bring this offense into the 21st century and to be able to compete beyond the B1G West because the B1G West isn't going to exist anymore after this season.

PLAY OF THE DAY - Weak Gold 51 Cowboy

note: terminology is my own and not an accurate representation of how Phil Longo calls plays.

12 pass to Braelon Allen

Situation- 11:19 left in the 3rd Quarter. 3rd and 4 from Iowa's 28 yard line.

Personnel- 11 personnel (Z Dike, Y Bell, H Nowakowski, X Green, F Allen)

Concept- Stick/seam with a shovel draw tag

Progression - Presnap read box leverage. Post snap peak the ILB and if he goes out for the hitch then pitch it inside for the shovel

Defense- 4-2 cover 1 with the boundary safety rolling down into the box