September 5, 1998
Late note:
I saw this quote by Barry Alvarez following Saturday's game concerning the lack of diversity in the passing game, specifically related to Carlos Daniels:
"There were some things we couldn't do," Alvarez acknowledged. "We were really nervous on some passing and protection things. We had to be selective and we had to pick and choose."
If you read my post game grades, I made mention of a couple blitzes that Daniels failed to pick up, including the one that went for the SDSU touchdown.
The two comments I have now are why didn't they just put Martin in a one back setup more. I know they like to have the element of surprise, but if Martin's ability to pick up the blitz is that much better (and I think it is), then the potential gains in the passing game have to greatly outweigh the subtractions in the running game.
Secondly, if Dayne plays on Saturday, are we going to see a much more diverse passing attack??? We shall see.
Here are my grades for Saturday night's game:
QB: B-
After a second viewing of the game, I don't think he played as poorly as some thought (myself included). His obvious pluses were the big run for the TD and his ability to find a way to win in the fourth quarter. On the short passes, Samuel threw good balls on 11 of 14 throws. Most of his screens and dumpoffs were right on target. He did have the two shaky throws on third down midway through the game (the one ovewrthrow to Austin was awful). On the medium balls, 2 of the 4 were decent throws. While only 1 of 4 of the deep balls was thrown well (2 were out of bounds). However, on the midrange and deep balls, the receivers were well covered so throwing the ball away was not a terrible choice. His interception was a mediocre throw, but again, not terrible. The fumble was a clean strip, and while I suppose he could have covered up better, I don't think you can fault a QB on such a play.
Samuel was not asked to throw down the field and so was not asked to make the difficult throws (at least for him). When guys were open, he generally got them the ball. In short, I think he played like the coaches expected him to.
RB: C+
With Dayne out and Faulkner severely hampered, this was bound to be a trouble spot. Daniels did gain confidence as the game went along, but he simply is not a top notch back ala Ron Dayne at this point. At times, Daniels was slow hitting the hole and often took an extra split second in reading the play. There were several plays where Dayne would have had big big yards with a similar hole, yet Daniels only picked up 6 yards or so. Daniels was also tripped up a few times when a nifty move could also have broken it big.
Daniels made a clutch NON-BLOCK on the Aztec fumble recovery for a TD. He made good initial contact, but did not sustain the block allowing the blitzer to strip Samuel. He also missed a key block on the first QB draw.
Chad Kuhns also missed a block on a blitz, allowing pressure on Samuel.
Cecil Martin was his normal steady self. He displayed soft hands with some key catches. He did seem to shy to contact at the end of two of his plays, not punishing the DBs in his path.
Overall, given the loss of the top two tailbacks, I think the RBs played just fine. I think Daniels will be a nice college back before he is done. He just has some growing pains to go through.
WR: C
I debated whether or not to give this an incomplete, but I decided to stick with a C. The receivers caught everything thrown at them (which is more than SDSU could say). The INT was a catchable ball, but it would have been a really nice catch. I counted only about 5-8 throws that were directed at the WR. When the throws were coming their way, they were covered like a blanket. I worry about the receivers ability to separate from the defense, other than Chambers that is. The Badgers just have to find more ways to get him the ball. 3 catches just isn't enough.
TE: C+
The tight ends did an acceptable job. Retzlaff made the nice catch on the conversion. Blocking was unspectacular, no blown assignments. Either they cannot get down the field or the coaches refuse to get them down the field, probably a bit of both. I think Retzlaff has some good potential as a safety valve, especially if teams continue to blitz the house against the run.
OL: B
The pass blocking was excellent by the offensive line. They had solid pass protection on 22 of 23 pass plays. Ferrario was beat once but overall Samuel had satifactory time. The few breakdowns in pass protection came from RBs missing on blitzers.
In the running attack, it was tough to give out a grade initially. My initial inclination was to grade them out poorly as it seemed that SDSU had defenders in the backfield all night. However, when I viewed the game again, I realized that the Aztecs were really blitzing guys from all over against the run. Rarely was it a defensive lineman in the backfield. They were just blitzing more players than could be blocked. Wisconsin did not make them pay for this aggressiveness. This is a trend that teams will follow all year. Whether Wisconsin can make this hurt or not is still uncertain.
I graded the Badger OL as having excellent run blocking on 38% of the runs, ok blocking on 28% of the runs, and poor blocking on 33% of the runs, usually when the full blitz was coming. There were 10 or 15 plays where the offensive line opened a gaping hole, only to have Daniels not really exploit it. There was consistent backward movement by the DL on most plays. They were just outnumbered often due to blitzes. The major missed run blocks were pretty evenly distributed: Gibson 1, Rabach 2, Costa 1, McIntosh 2, and Ferrario 2.
The blocking on the options and screen were pretty bad. They just couldn't get into postition quickly enough. There was just too much penetration on the option plays to have any hope of success. The screens seemed much closer to being effective, and with a little fine tuning could be an effective play for the Badgers.
Overall, if the Badgers OL plays the way they did Saturday, the Badgers will be in business.
DL: A
Anytime the Badgers hold a team to 58 yards rushing, you know the defensive line played well. On running plays, the DL was really only handled on about 5 plays. They put good heat on the QB on about 2/3 of the Aztec plays. When they didn't get direct pressure, they still managed to push the pocket and get hands in the air. They constantly were getting good penetration. The Aztecs simply had no answer for Tom Burke, who was all over the field on run and pass plays. Not only did Burke get 4 or 5 great pressures on Brinton, but he also made a few plays downfield. Janke displayed better mobility than last year, and made a couple of nice pursuits, one on a screen pass down the field. Kolodziej played an excellent game, getting good penetration on 5 or 6 plays and often forcing the flow of the play. Although Favret didn't stand out, after further inspection he did make some nice weak side tackles, also showing good flow to the ball. In shades of last year, Favret did get sucked into over pursuing a few times as well though. Finally, Wendell Bryant seemed very active in his playing time. On one of Burke's sacks, Bryant was following right behind and would have nabbed Brinton if Burke hadn't.
LB: B
A steady if unspectacular game from the LBs. Chris Ghidorzi was flying all over the place and really laying a few punishing hits on the Aztecs. Thompson missed a couple of tackles (as he is prone to do...most notably on the TD run) but showed good pursuit. A couple of times he was a step away from making the play, but just not quick enough to be in position and wrap up the ball carrier. However, he made up for these misses by pursuing well across the field. Thompson is consistenly busting his tail all over the place and usually makes up for his missed tackles. He also made a nice play on the disputed fumble (it wasn't of course), not only making the hit but recovering the ball before it rolled out of bounds. Roger Knight was relatively silent. He showed pretty good mobility, but overpursued a few times or was a step away from making the play. He seemed to improve as the game progressed. Adamov was not heard from. All the backers were average at best in pass coverage. Although not always their man, the TE was consistenly open. The exception was the disputed fumble where Thompson had good coverage. They just couldn't catch.
DB: B
An overall solid game, although a more accurate passer could have really hurt them in places. Overall, while they only had super coverage on about 5-6 plays, their was only noticeably poor coverage on 7-8 plays, none of them deep as the Badgers played their traditional bend but don't break defense. Jason Doering was the star of the DBs in my mind as he supplied outstanding run support. I didn't see him miss a tackle and he layed some serious lumber on the ball carrier on more than one occasion. Although Echols, Fletcher, and King played soft much of the game, they proved to have a nose for the ball. Fletcher's INT was outstanding. He did drop the sure TD though at Wisconsin we are fairly used to not catching them all. Taylor was not heard from all that much in terms of making plays. He did blow coverage on the TE in the endzone where Brinton threw the ball over the TEs head. Taylor was fearless on a number of runs though, proving he will throw his body into the fray.
Given the youth of the squad, I think it was a successful debut. They will need to gradually work their way into Big Ten form. We are still waiting word on Fletcher's injury.
Special Teams: A-
Stemke did not kick the ball all that well, but put the nail in the Aztec coffin with a great punt in the 4th quarter. Joey Boese made a nice play keeping the ball pinned. The coverage teams were good. Again, Boese and Ghidorzi were very aggressive. The return teams really struggled. The blocking wasn't very good and Nick Davis seemed to be a little nervous, running straight into the oncoming tacklers. Pisetsky put his kickoffs intot the endzone while with the wind.Davenport was his usual outstanding self, nailing all 3 FGs. I thought his long FG was a big inspiration to the team. If they wouldn't have scored there, it could have been a different game. Finally, the blocked punt was also a nice hustle play from Rosga. Do I sense another Korey Manley in Rosga???
While not as good as they can be, the special teams provided enough good plays for them to win. Overall, a good effort.
Let's take a quick look at how my key's to the game panned out.
1.) Wisconsin DE vs. SDSU OL. Burke ran wild in the first half, keeping the Badgers in the game. He consistenly came free as the Badgers stunted on most third down plays. SDSU adjusted in the second half, but he certainly was a factor. Brinton was certainly less accurate in the second half. How much of this can be attributed to Burke is unknown, but he had to be in the back of Brinton's mind. Where in the world was Favret?? I didn't hear his name called all night.
Although receiving limited playing time, I though Wendell Bryant was very active. He looks like he will be a player. He even dropped into pass coverage once.
2. Gibson/McIntosh vs. Kabeer.... Other than the sack turned into a TD, they did a pretty good job of pushing Kabeer out of the play and giving time for Samuel to throw. However, the SDSU DL played well at the point of attack and consistently shot the gaps and gave the Badger runners little room to run.
3.Third down conversions. The Badgers were poor in this regard this year, a stark contrast to the game last year. The few big plays the Badgers had were in the early downs. The Badgers went to the screen and dump off passes often on third down rather than risk throwing the ball down the field (where coverage was good all night other than on Chambers' TD).
4.Badger RB health.Obviously Dayne and Faulkner were not going to be a factor. When I saw Faulkner run out onto the field, I said, "Oh, oh." Then when I saw Faulkner favoring his shoulder after his first or second run, I knew it was going to be a tight game. Daniels did ok in his first game. He made a few nice reads and showed more confidence as the game went along. However, it is clear that Wisconsin is a different team without Dayne. PERIOD!
5.Setting up play action. Neither team was especially effective in this regard. If I am not mistaken the Chambers TD was off play action. However, Wisconsin was shut down on first and second down on the ground, preventing them from fully utilizing the play pass. Without at least some semblance of a run game, Wisconsin is just not going to succeed.
Wisconsin was able to give some good help to their rookie corners in this regard as well. The corners played soft, but got some help with the pass rush early which threw Brinton off in my opinion. Alvarez was definitely playing NOT to give up the big play. Overall, Fletch and Echols showed that they will be able to make some play as the year goes along.
6.Wisconsin option. Dreadful!!! The few times they ran it, Samuel just didn't get the ball outside quick enough (although the play seemed to be defensed well regardless). The lack of an option attack allowed the Aztecs to stack the line at times and blitz the gaps, throwing the Badger RB for losses before they got started.
As for my prediction, I would have taken off a TD if I had known Dayne was NOT going to play, making my prediction 31-17 which would have been pretty close. However, I was dead wrong in the ability of the Aztec front 7 to handle the "improved" offensive line. The Badger OL looked painfully slow and didn't blow anybody off the ball. I thought the Badger defense played as expected, maybe a bit better.
Alvarez has been quoted in the past as saying that the most improvement is found between game 1 and game 2. I certainly hope so. Otherwise, you can kiss a top three finish in the Big Ten goodbye.
Here are "Badgermaniac's Keys to the Game":
1.) San Diego OL (specifically the OT) vs. Wisconsin DE Tom Burke and John Favret. The one potential advantage the Aztecs have in this game is their talented wide receivers vs. the Badgers freshman corner. While QB Spencer Brinton looks to be a capable passer, he will need time to take advantage of these matchups. Four of the five OL spots feature new starters so keeping Burke and Favret out of the backfield is vital.
2.) Conversely, Badger tackles Chris McIntosh (or possible Aaron Gibson depending on the defensive alignment) against Aztec speed rusher Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila. Can McIntosh keep this 240 pound speedy sack specialist out of the backfield long enough to give Samuel the time that he requires?
And from the San Diego State perspective, will Gbaja-Biamila be able to hold up against the pounding that the 320 pound+ tackles are sure to deliver in the run game?
3.) Third down conversions. Last year, Mike Samuel completed 12 of 13 throws for 176 yards against San Diego State. Wisconsin was 8 for 13 on third down conversions. Today will be the first indication of whether Mike Samuel has indeed taken a step up in his development.
4.) Badger running back health. At last report, both Ron Dayne and Eddie Faulkner were scheduled to play. Although one at full speed should be enough in terms of the offense, it is key that both be available to play so as to not overburden either one with 30+ carries given their recent ailments.
5.) Setting up the play action. When Wisconsin's offense is clicking, they are consistently in second and short situations, setting up the play action fly patterns to receivers such as Lee DeRamus and Tony Simmons. Allowing Mike Samuel two or three deep shots to Chris Chambers will be key as SDSU is sure to pack the line in an effort to limit Ron Dayne's effectiveness.
On the other side of the ball, Wisconsin will be making their best effort at giving rookie corners Echols and Fletcher as much support as possible in terms of 2 deep help or in deep linebacker drops. In order to do this, the Badgers must keep the Aztecs in predictable offensive situations. Too many second and 3s or 4s will allow the Aztecs to run their play action passes and limit much of this deep help (especially the linebackers).
6.)Badger option attack. San Diego State has implemented an aggresive zone blitzing package aimed at clogging Dayne's rushing lanes. The Badgers may counter with some option package to keep these defenders honest. If Dayne or Faulkner can break containment, it could get ugly for the Aztecs as Faulkner has breakaway speed and Dayne is death to defensive backs, especially small ones such as San Diego States.
BADGERMANIAC'S PREDICTION: The Aztecs just don't have the manpower in the trenches to match up with the Badgers. Wisconsin 38 San Diego State 17.
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