The Wisconsin Badgers didn’t have their best weekend against the Alabama Crimson Tide last Saturday, struggling to gain any consistency on either side of the ball in a 38-14 loss.
Offensively, the Badgers’ struggles to run the football continued, as Wisconsin couldn’t get much push at the line of scrimmage against an Alabama front that was clearly determined to stop the run.
With their current offensive line, it’s not clear how well the Badgers are going to be able to run the ball against Big Ten opponents.
But, they need to make teams respect them through the air to clear up some of those boxes and get better traction on the ground.
When offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes was hired, the goal was to revert to some of Wisconsin’s old-school offenses where they could run the football and be more physical at the line of scrimmage. But, Grimes’s vision also included the vertical passing attack, which hasn’t materialized through three weeks at Wisconsin.
Yes, there’ve been a couple of plays, including the play-action shots from Week 2 and the Jayden Ballard touchdown in Week 3. But, there hasn’t been much consistency there at all, which has hurt the offense.
What has been the issue with establishing the vertical attack for the Badgers?
Last week, one big miss was when quarterback Danny O’Neil underthrew Vinny Anthony for what should have been a touchdown. Instead, the defender was able to recover and force an incompletion on the double-move.
“I was definitely late on it,” O’Neil acknowledged about the missed throw. “I was really trying to see, making sure that the DB bit on the double move, when really, I should have just trusted Vinny, put it up a little bit sooner, definitely put a little farther, and I under threw him a little bit.
“Just being able to connect on those big shots, that was another key to the game for us. But, just having to trust that, what we saw was that they were going to get aggressive eventually on the outside and try and jump those stop routes, just because we have taken advantage of those in the first two games. So, we knew that they were going to start to be aggressive on those moves. So just trusting what I’m seeing and being able to put the ball up sooner instead of waiting to see him open. So, it just was late.”
Overall, the Badgers feel like the opportunities for those deep shots have been there. They just haven’t executed yet.
“Yeah, [the biggest issue with the deep ball so far has been] just connecting,” O’Neil continued. “We’re getting the looks we want. We just have to be able to connect. And maybe, trust in ourselves to make those big plays. I think that there’s been a lot of opportunities that we have missed. That deep ball to Vinny is a big one.
“There’s just been a lot of, almost, and almost don’t win you football games. You got to be able to go connect. So, just being able to go in this week and be able to make those big plays happen, to open up the run game, that’s going to be something that we try and do. So, expecting maybe to open up the playbook a little bit earlier than we have in previous games. But I’m excited to see how the rest of the game plan shakes out, and have a good feeling of what we are going to see. So I know that the opportunities are going to be there.”
If the Badgers are able to consistently take advantage of some of those shots, defenses will have no choice but to respect their vertical attack. That, in itself, should open up the run game for the Badgers with fewer players in the box.
Regardless, though, execution hasn’t been near the level that Wisconsin has hoped for so far. That needs to change this weekend when the Badgers host the Maryland Terrapins at Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday.
