The Wisconsin Badgers had their roughest offensive outing of the season to date when they were blown out last weekend against the Iowa Hawkeyes in a 37-0 loss.
It was a tough day, especially for quarterback Hunter Simmons, who had just 82 yards on 8 of 21 passing with three back-breaking turnovers in the first half. Wisconsin’s momentum was erased with those three turnovers, as Iowa scored 17 of its 20 first-half points off the takeaways.
After the game, head coach Luke Fickell acknowledged the performance,
while noting that they probably should have made a change at quarterback to ignite a spark in the offense.
“We were reeling on both sides,” head coach Luke Fickell said about Simmons after the game. So, it wasn’t something I went in at halftime and said, what’s the opportunity, what are the chances here? Where we were at and what we needed to be able to do, we still felt like there were some things there, and he gave us the best chance.
“I’m not saying, after the first three picks in the first quarter, that he didn’t maybe settle down a little bit, but we were just never able to find anything down the field to create any energy or any momentum or establish any drive. And so you’re probably right. I mean, it’s something that we got to take a good hard look at. No disrespect to Hunter, but probably was an opportunity, or some situation where we should have went the other direction.”
Speaking to reporters ahead of the Ohio State game, Fickell said that the quarterbacks would compete in practice this week, but the Badgers elected to go with Simmons for a third straight week on Saturday against the Buckeyes.
The Southern Illinois transfer threw for just 54 yards and an interception in the 34-0 loss, marking the second straight shutout for the Badgers offense.
What led to the decision to start Simmons over sophomore Danny O’Neil this week?
“There is a consistency,” head coach Luke Fickell said about Simmons. “There’s a level of things that we need to be able to do, that we feel like gives us the better opportunity to move the football. Look, that’s, I think, the top-rated defense in the country. And I’m not taking away that we didn’t score points, and I’m not taking away how many yards we had before the last series.
“[As] we went into it, there were things that we knew. We had to be able to spread the thing out. We had to be able to throw the ball, and in some of those short passes, like we did in the second series that got picked off. And so all of a sudden you get into one of those things, and now you got to kind of revert back a little bit because, again, you don’t want guys to lose hope. You got to find ways, like, we got to generate something before we go back to that. But really, I thought that’s what Hunter gave us as we competed in battle throughout the beginning of the week.”
Wisconsin has another tough week ahead next weekend when it takes on the No. 8 Oregon Ducks, who bounced back from a loss to the Indiana Hoosiers with a 56-10 win over the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on the road Saturday.
The Badgers will likely evaluate their quarterbacks once again, but it seems like Simmons’s consistency in practice is giving him the edge so far in the battle.
