The Wisconsin Badgers had their sixth straight loss of the season on Saturday, losing 21-7 to the No. 6 Oregon Ducks on the road. After being shut out in two uncompetitive games against the Iowa Hawkeyes
and No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes, it was a much different attitude from the Badgers on Saturday, as the defense fought hard to keep this one close.
Ultimately, the offense didn’t have enough answers, and the Badgers lost their sixth straight game by 14 or more points.
After the game, head coach Luke Fickell spoke with the media, pointing out the strong defensive effort, but also the penalties and issues that hurt the team. Here’s everything he said on Saturday.
Opening Statement: This is a tough one to swallow again, but tougher because I thought we put ourselves in a position where we had an opportunity. And I thought defensively, our guys came to play. I thought they from the very get-go of the surprise onside that they recovered, that those guys went out there and didn’t bat an eye and stopped them. Battled their butts off the whole first half, really battled the whole time. And there’s some things to be proud of.
“There’s also some things to be disappointed in. We can’t play undisciplined. We can’t have as many penalties as we have. We can’t give them more opportunities on third down. We can’t make really poor decisions. One of our seniors to get ejected. That’s not an aggressive mistake. Those are things that we try to pride ourselves on being disciplined. And that was one of those things tonight that we’re not going to win a football game, especially against a team like this on the road, if we can’t play more disciplined, we can’t eliminate some of those big penalties. I think that stands out to me more than anything else.”
On Gideon Ituka’s performance…
“We saw a little bit at the end of the end of the game last week and he hasn’t gotten a whole lot of opportunities. A lot of times, young guys, and he did it tonight, he put the ball on the ground. I mean, obviously, the conditions were different. He had put the ball on the ground maybe in fall camp, and maybe didn’t get as many opportunities [as] things have happened. But, I tell you what. I think he showed us some things tonight that he can be a back of the future. And I know this again, that’s one game, it’s one opportunity.
“But I thought he did a really, really good job. I’m disappointed he got a penalty at the end of the game there that I don’t care if you’re young or you’re old. I mean those are things that we just can’t have happen if it was in a situation where it could have made the difference in a ball game. Those are another one of those things as a young guy. But, the way he played, the way he ran the football, I think, gives us not just hope, but, I mean, I think the ability to have a little bit more of a physical running game.”
On if a change at QB was an idea…
Yeah, there was. There was. And we thought about it again and talked about it before the game, too, just based on, ‘hey, if the first couple drives don’t go, we want to give Danny, get him in there and get him an opportunity.’ As we were rolling, I didn’t ask as much until halftime. I do think the conditions of things make it difficult to throw another guy in there that hasn’t taken the snaps, hasn’t been in that situation. Just whether it was pouring, whether it was the wind was blowing sideways. I mean, there was a lot of other factors, but it might be one of those ones where you kind of go back and kick yourself to say, ‘I think there’s some opportunities there for Danny.’ And we’re going to need Danny down the stretch and we need Danny to stick with us and stay with us and see how this thing rolls.
On Mason Posa and Cooper Catalano…
“There’s the future. And I’m not saying that obviously Christian Allegro isn’t really, really good and that Tackett Curtis isn’t a guy that has been a starting middle linebacker for us. But those young guys stepped up tonight. From obviously the watching it from the side, I haven’t looked at the film or anything yet, but those guys played really well. I mean, they’re mature beyond their years. They actually communicate and talk really, really well on the football field. I know the guys in front of them, the defensive line guys, really, really respect them. And not just because the way they play, but the way which they lead and how they help those guys up front. There’s just some natural things about them. And to be honest with you, I think they played pretty darn good tonight.”
On the lack of deep shots…
“I mean, give them credit. They do a darn good job. I mean, it’s a really good team, but a really good defense. But, yeah, I mean, you were there. The conditions were very difficult to throw the football. And, not to mention, a team that pressures a bit. So, they’re kind of a twofold. Your defense is playing as well as they are. So I think that there’s one of those things where, look, we can’t sit here and think we’re going to score seven points and win a football game. But there is a little bit of the nature of where we are and what we’re doing and the conditions in which they are. Again, you have to be able to throw the ball better. But it was a tough night to be able to throw the football.
On Jake Renfro, Kerry Kodanko injuries…
“No, I think after last week’s game, I don’t know that we felt like he was going to make it this week. He didn’t practice all week. You know, that’s not abnormal. Maybe he gets in there later on Wednesdays or some Thursdays, but I don’t think that he was feeling quite, he wasn’t feeling very good, and he wasn’t able to even practice it all on Wednesday or Thursday. So, we knew there wasn’t going to be an opportunity for him. We kind of knew at the beginning of the week we’re going to go with Davis [Heinzen], and if something changed, it would change. Davis got rolled up a little bit, and Ryan Cory had to go in there tonight.
“So, I mean, it’s all hands on deck now. I mean, you guys can see it. Yac (Cade Yacamelli) went out and not that Gideon wasn’t doing a darn good job. And then, you know, Grover Bortolotti had to step in there and play some tailback as well. And so, that kickoff unit’s a whole new unit almost with just guys that bust their butt but, don’t get a whole lot of opportunities just because of where the numbers are right now.”
On keeping the locker room positive…
“It’s difficult. But I’ll be honest with you. You walk in that locker room as disappointed as you are, and as much as you want to lose your mind, and you look at those guys’ eyes and they’re not batting an eye. They’re not blaming each other, not pointing a finger at each other, they’re not arguing with each other. We might have had one. But none of the guys that are playing. They understood what this mountain was going to look like. I think the mountain has gotten a hell of a lot bigger than even what we thought from the get-go.
“But it’s not hard for me to go in there and look in some of those seniors eyes and realize that they got one month of college football left and to give them everything I got. And I think the young guys feel the same way. They look at some of those guys like DP (Darryl Peterson) and Riley [Mahlman] and Jake Renfro, all those guys, and just kind of recognize where we are. But like, this is unfortunately, it’s a part of the game that sucks, but that they got something to play for still.
On the Oregon run game…
“Well, you’re going to see there at the start, I don’t want to complain about calls, but the very first play of the second half for 35 yards or whatever it is, I mean it’s not even, it’s ridiculous to be honest with you, right there on the edge that they don’t call. But to be honest, even that last drive in the last drive in the first half, they started to find a little bit of something inside, and I don’t know exactly what it was, but they found some movement up front and did a good job, and I don’t know. I mean, it’s one of those things where we had some guys even inside that Parker Petersen that was down this week. And I know, you know, Suggs played, but he was out most of the week and had some things that I don’t think he probably played as much as he would normally play. And, I think some of that maybe kind of got a wear and tear on us a little bit there at the end of the first half, a little bit in the second half.”
On if you can take any moral victories from scoring points…
“No. I mean, everything matters. That’s what I say to those guys in there. Everything matters. It’s the last two plays of the game, they matter. I mean like, where we are, everything matters. And so scoring points. Yeah, it matters. You’re not going to win football games if you score seven points probably, but you got to score seven before you can score 10, and you got to score 10 before you can score 14. And at some point in time, we have to find ways to string these things together, get better, and score more points. It’s not going to change. And, I think that, you know, we weren’t able to do it well enough tonight in tough conditions against a really good football team and a really good defense, but we got to expect more.”
On taking shots downfield…
“Look, there’s guys on the outside that deserve some opportunities to take some of those chunk plays. I don’t know that we took as many of them tonight, but tonight, the conditions of things, and then you want to play complementary. There’s a balance to what we’re trying to do. And sometimes those shots can put you in a position where you’re right back to where you started, and whether it’s second and 10 or it’s a turnover. But I think more than anything, we got to gain confidence in our ability to take some of those shots. If they’re going to be 50-50 or they’re going to be 30-70, whatever, it’s going to be like they still have to be taken in order to loosen things up.
“Tonight was a harder time to do it because, for most of the game or half of the game, the conditions were not conducive to take much of any shots. But we’re not going to be able to line up there and run the ball for 250 yards against a team like that unless we can loosen some things up down the field. We can throw the football hell of a lot better, and that’s just what we got to be able to do.
On what the bye week looks like…
Well, I don’t know. It looks like we’ll get back about 4, 4:30 in the morning, and normally a bye week, Sundays are the best time because guys don’t come in on Sundays and give them a little bit of time to kind of sleep and rest a little bit. But, it’s going to be tough. I mean, you love to go out on a bye week and continue to get better and find ways to get better. And right now where we are, I mean, Riley Mahlman has taken every snap and Joe Brunner has taken every snap on offense and Emerson Mandell has taken every snap on offense as a redshirt freshman. I’m not sure how much they’ll be able or should do during a bye week, but yet, we still have to get a hell of a lot better. So the normal script for a bye week is going to be a little bit different. We got to practice. We got to get back out there. We’ve got to get some guys healthy if we can, but we got to find a way to have some rhythm here for this last month of the season.”
