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

The reasonable fan inside of us has known all year that that this was going to be a transition season and that the learning curve would be steep at times. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expect more from our team, because that is just a sign that we care about what they do and want them to succeed. Through the first three weeks of the season we have seen a lot of good signs that the new Air Raid offense had potential and slowly but surely was working. Though at times it has seemed that every time the Badgers took a step forward in one area they would take a step back in another.

Now with the conference schedule looming the question is could the Badgers put it all together, start fast, and play four quarters of good football. Against Purdue I would say we got two of three. Right out of the box our punishing run game had the Boilermakers on their heels. Early on the defense was able to get stops and get the ball back in the offense’s hands which lead to trips to the end zone on the first three offensive drives. Building a 21-3 lead going into halftime the slow starting Badgers were riding high. Which brings us to the 2nd half.

Efficiency wise they were still scoring. However well timed blitzes and dreaded mental mistakes meant touchdowns were traded for field goals. At the same time the defense without ILB Maema Njongmeta started getting gashed in the run game and the comfortable lead slowly started getting eaten away. But after a couple close calls by the official and some timely turnovers the defense shored up and with a late Braelon Allen TD the Boilermakers were put to bed for good.

Now the stage is set so let’s get into this week’s the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:

The Good

Watching the offensive diversity on display against the Boilermakers you can really see the method to the madness and the slow build of the scheme so far this year. New run schemes like dart, along with changing levels on RPOs added another element to the run game. Tanner Mordecai’s reads and keeps added a new dynamic to the already potent attack that makes you wonder what past Badger offenses could have looked like with such a 1-2 punch. We also saw a lot more intermediate and deeper routes and a willingness to push the ball downfield. Add a couple Philly Special’s and it was a fantastic night of play calling by Phil Longo.

The Bad

There is still a disconnect between the receivers and Mordecai on leverage reads with the most obvious example being a shot to Bryson Green where he powered down after about 5 yards and Tanner proceeded to fire the ball over his head. While the textbook definition of that route read would be for the receiver to break if he is capped at that level I think Tanner expected that Bryson could read that he had a step on his CB and could easily blow past him for an easy hole shot fade. That didn’t happen and resulted in an incomplete pass. Many instances when you see Mordecai waiting and waiting in the pocket for routes to open are caused by receivers not having the right “feeling” in space and don’t understand their fit in the progression. This needs to improve and improve fast when we start playing against better secondaries that can win the one on one matchups.

The Ugly

How many damn procedure penalties can a team get before a coach starts making them to burpees on the field? Jaysus it was getting annoying after a while. Kudos to the Purdue defense they really knew how to make the offensive line jumpy, but that kind of noise needs to be blocked out fast or it’s going to be a long season. Obviously a major emphasis for the offensive line this week in practice was getting out of their stances fast and being explosive, but sometimes that can make a player jumpy which was evident in Jack Nelson for sure. It’s not a discipline problem I can assure you as no coach would ever under any circumstance let stuff like that fly. With the bye week coming up expect a good number of gassers to be ran by the offensive line at practice on Wednesday.

PLAY OF THE DAY - Weak Gold 69 Y Cross

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

34 yard pass to Chimere Dike

Situation- 5:50 left in the 3rd Quarter. 3rd and 11 from Purdue’s 43 yard line.

Personnel- 10 personnel (Z Dike, Y Bell, Y Pauling, X Williams, F Allen)

Concept- 4 verts

Progression - Find best CB matchup and work from outside in/across. If receiver is capped at 10 yards they will break downhill.

Defense- 4-1 Dime Under front, Cover 1 Robber