Offense Drives Breakdown - Wisconsin

zoogs

zoogs

Assistant Coach
We had two scoring drives in the first half that gave us 10 points. Here's how the other drives, including the single opening drive of the 3rd quarter, broke down:

0:08 / 1 play, INT

1:43 / 5 play, 23 yards, PUNT

1:24 / 3 play, -2 yards, PUNT

1:25 / 4 play, 21 yards, FUMBLE

1:31 / 5 play, 12 yards, PUNT

0:42 / 3 play, 3 yards, INT

By the time we got the ball back after that last drive, the score was 49-10 and the 3rd quarter had barely begun.

Make no mistake, the defense got it absolutely handed to them and were abused all game. Wisconsin had a scoring op nearly every time they got the ball. Still, can't have this.

This was a problem I noticed in the UCLA game as well. When the offense breaks down like this, and the defense isn't stopping anything, that's when forces combine for the game to totally get away from us.

 
Whew, I thought it ws a break down of Wisky......

Toss rt for TD

Toss left for TD

Toss left for TD

Toss rt for TD

500+ yrds later..........

I agre with the above. just trying to be humorous.

It seems that neither side really even tries to help the other either. Someone had posted after one of our games that if our D is on the field for an extended time, instead of eating clock, Beck goes all Oregon and scores in like 3 seconds putting an already gassed D back on the field.

A more recent example was when Wisky came out in the "stand up D". Gosh looked familiar like NU 2011 vs Sparty. Why did that shock Beck? Hadn't he and Bo and the rest of the staff schemed that together last year. Do they not communicate what works/worked and why it does. Bo is a supposed D guru and beck is supposed to have some O smarts. Don't they explain why things work or won't. Nothing should be such a surprise as to make you wet yourself repeatedly on national tv.

When we implode, we do it on both sides for sure. The only game I can recently recall when the O clicked and D failed was NW last year. Martinez was nails and the D crapped it up. Sometimes seems like we have two teams out there (actually 3 counting st) instead of one cohesive unit.

More problems than solutions at this point.

For the record, those stats above are plain out crappy. Wow!

 
Yeah, I guess what I don't get is, how their defense got markedly better, in less than two months. Granted they were missing a few guys, and they had time to go back and look at the tape, but shouldn't have we done the same?

We didn't have Rex, and we had plenty of time to look at tape too. I guess I'm just a little confused and more importantly, concerned, that there wasn't a solid game plan in place, when we all knew what the stakes were...

 
As far as the Badger D goes, they have been playing very well all year. It's easy to forget that we were missing 3 of our top 4 DEs and our starting FS in the first game. That made a huge difference when you guys were coming back by attacking the edges with Abdullah and Martinez and we just couldn't stop it. In the other two big games (OSU, PSU) we were missing the heart and soul of the team in Borland. This was the first big game where we had the whole D healthy and ready to fly around. Even with the injuries this year the UW D has been very underrated and the first Nebraska game was by far their worst performance of the year (obviously NU playing lights out in the 2nd half had a large part in that subpar showing). I don't know how much they really 'improved'. They just got healthy at the right time.

I don't think any huge changes need to be made other than improving the depth. Missing a game changing DT can cripple a lot of defenses, especially when it forces you to reshuffle the whole D-line. A 260 lb DE playing DT against a power run game clearly was not working but you play the guys who give you the best chance to win when you face injuries. Other than depth, which every football team at every level wishes it could improve, and a little more beef in the trenches, this D has been fine. I expect them to play very well against UGA.

Also I don't think the scheme was really the problem. Those really were the same plays (except one or two weird ones) UW has been running all year. The biggest difference this game was that Canada finally stuck with them for 4 quarters. If you remember the first game UW's O was moving the ball very well in the first half and the speed sweep was a big part of it, along with play action. In the 2nd half Canada got timid, not wanting the frosh in his first start to blow a 17 point lead. He stopped the sweep motion and just ran iso into the teeth of your D for the rest of the game and the O stalled out. Gordon came into the game averaging over 8 ypc on the year and UW fans have been screaming to get him the ball more all season. Obviously the execution was nonexistent for NU but I don't know how much blame you can put on the coaches for that. The players have to make the tackles in space, coaches can only do so much.

From my perspective it looked like NU just kind of walked into a perfect storm. Despite what they are saying in the press, it looked to me like NU was already working on their tan's and wondering which board shorts to bring to Pasadena. That was a team that thought the B1GCG was a mere formality and they ran into a pissed off and relatively healthy (for Dec.1) Badger squad who knew it had underperformed all year and wanted to make a statement. Remember UW has basically been treading water waiting for this game since the OSU sanctions were announced. There was simply no way Indiana, Illinois or Purdue was going to beat us out for the title shot. Those teams simply are not on our level and haven't been for some time now. Once we lost to Oregon St in week 2 we knew that the pinnacle was going to be the Rose Bowl this year and it was basically a one week season. We definitely wanted to beat OSU and PSU and all the others but they didn't really mean anything. The whole season was just a warmup for this game and I think NU just totally overlooked them and it snowballed from there.

Its a tough loss to take but don't lose sight of the fact that 99% of CFB teams would kill to win 9-10 games every season and play for a conference title 3 out 4 years. I guess my overall point is that this loss had just as much to do with Wisconsin as it did NU imploding. I think that has been overlooked in many of the post game breakdowns, UW is no joke, when they bring their A game they can beat anybody in the country. Not trying to beat my chest, just saying don't get too down on your boys, they had a great season and can still finish it strong with a huge win over the Bulldogs. Good luck and know that the B1G will be pulling for you!

 
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zoogies said:
We had two scoring drives in the first half that gave us 10 points. Here's how the other drives, including the single opening drive of the 3rd quarter, broke down:

0:08 / 1 play, INT

1:43 / 5 play, 23 yards, PUNT

1:24 / 3 play, -2 yards, PUNT

1:25 / 4 play, 21 yards, FUMBLE

1:31 / 5 play, 12 yards, PUNT

0:42 / 3 play, 3 yards, INT

By the time we got the ball back after that last drive, the score was 49-10 and the 3rd quarter had barely begun.

Make no mistake, the defense got it absolutely handed to them and were abused all game. Wisconsin had a scoring op nearly every time they got the ball. Still, can't have this.

This was a problem I noticed in the UCLA game as well. When the offense breaks down like this, and the defense isn't stopping anything, that's when forces combine for the game to totally get away from us.
Click to expand...
I feel like the offense struggles more because the defense is struggling, though. They have to go away from their gameplan because the defense is giving up TD's left and right. There's no chance to test the defense and see where they're vulnerable to, like they typically do.

There are really only three things that I want to see from the offense: 1. Taylor cutting down on his fumbles, 2. OL improvement, 3. I would like to see us actually surprise someone with our gameplan. We haven't done that all year, and we always start slow because the opposing coaches surprise us, never the other way around.

 
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I feel like our defense really struggles because our offense puts them in horrible positions. In the first six drives, we coughed the football up three times. You can't put your defense in those situations and be successful. Our turnover ratio has to be one of the worst in the country.

 
Definitely goes both ways. It's a team sport and failures on one end complement and compound failures on the other. It was tough for our offense to have to face a big hole early in the game. Tough for the defense to have to continually go back in the game with no time off the clock and no Nebraska points on the board.

I think we were probably losing that game regardless, but a less pathetic performance from the D could have spurred the offense and kept the game respectable...and a less pathetic performance from the offense could have prevented Wisconsin from scoring 42 points in the first half just on TOP alone, and kept us in it.

 
been saying this for a long time. it was extremely obvious during the Ohio State game. after miller's long run, Beck comes out throwing and after 18 or so seconds of clock time Martinez throws a pick. this offense plays completely independent of the defensive strategy - or the current state of the defense. as much as we hated that offense in 09', and as bad as they were - they played as a part of the "TEAM" unit and that's why we were able to be successful. They were pathetic but they we were in a position to win 13 games that year....just as we were in a position to lose 7 or 8 this year. There can't be two game plans, there has to be one. And they have to adjust together. The offense can't adjust and leave the defense hanging. That's on the HC.

 
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I like your post, Zoogs.

And another element that I got blasted for pointing out after the game is that our version of the shotgun read is incredibly feast or famine at times. Our O-line has trouble against the blitz, and when we consistently run the read on first down when our opponent blitzes, it spells huge trouble. When the opponent's defense breaks through our line, it doesn't matter whether Taylor makes the right read - it's a 4-6 yard loss.

I'll probably get blasted again for pretending to know more about play calling and scheme than Beck. I don't, not by a long shot. But we have to find a better way to produce yardage on 1st down; it's undeniable. When we start these drives this way with a 5 yard loss on 1st down, the drive is over.

 
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OK....here is something I was frustrated at during the game and finally had time to look it up.

In the first half:

Pass 18

Run 12

Now, that doesn't appear to be that bad. But, I specifically remember Taylor going back a number of times and having to scramble because of absolutely no time in the pocket. Many of those 12 runs are by him. So, I am going to claim that 5 of those were actually pass plays that broke down.

SO....that leaves us at

Pass 23

Run 7

76.666% of the time a pass play was called in the first half.

I have thought Beck has done a decent job pretty much all year. I have really liked our offense. HOWEVER, when you have our stable of RBs with Rex back as pretty much healthy.....you call 76.66% pass plays???? I was shocked.

 
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