The Wisconsin Badgers are 2-0 heading into a crucial game against the No. 19 Alabama Crimson Tide, which will essentially serve as the team’s first big litmus test early in the season.
While the Badgers have won their first two games, neither of them has been as clean as Wisconsin would like. In the opener, Wisconsin only mustered 17 points of offense, of which 14 came in the second half. Last weekend, the Badgers started slow, leading only 14-10 at half before scoring 28 unanswered in the final 30
minutes.
What has been Wisconsin’s biggest issue through the first two weeks?
“There’s a lot of things,” quarterback Danny O’Neil acknowledged this week. “I think, honestly, it has taken a little bit of time for us to really get rolling. Up front, in the passing game, running game, whatever it may be, we just have to figure out what we can do to come out hot. And, if all 11 of us can do that, then we’re going to come out hot. We’re going to come out swinging. We’re gonna fight for four full quarters. And I’m excited to see what that looks like.”
Head coach Luke Fickell pointed to the team’s execution, which is why he stated that the team isn’t ready for the big matchups yet.
“The truth is, and what matters is, we got to get ready,” Fickell said on Monday. “All I can say is, from last week’s performance in particular, the first half, it just wasn’t as clean as we needed to be for what we wanted. And I didn’t say score more points. I didn’t say get more stops. I didn’t say get more turnovers. Just being the fact of, ‘hey, when we take the field, are we playing to the level at which we want to play, and executing to the level at which we want to play?’
“And that’s where that whole idea of that mid-season form we wanted to be able to see, and we saw some things of that in Game 1. I don’t know that we saw quite what we’re talking about in Game 2, but that’s where the process, that’s where the journey, that’s where every single week, it is about building and getting better. And so we’ll be ready. I know that, you know, mentally and physically, but we got to go out there and be able to execute, do the things that we expect to do.
“A lot of things go into that. I know it won’t be a lack of preparation. It won’t be a lack of focus. We’ve already talked about that. It’s not like there’s going to be some speech that needs to be had on a Tuesday to get guys fired up to prepare for this one. It’s just the ability to say, ‘Now, when you get to that moment at 11 o’clock, can you have the calmness? Can you have the patience about yourself to go out and execute like you have all week, and you have all through fall camp, you know, with the expectations that are in front of you?’”
Wisconsin will have to figure those things out quickly, though, because a battle with the Crimson Tide is coming up soon on Saturday. Kickoff is slated for 11:00 a.m. on ABC at Bryant-Denny Stadium
