Wisconsin's 30-6 blowout of Michigan State was one of the more surprising results from last weekend despite UW's opening-week win over LSU, which it's safe to say has lost some of its shine. After an uninspiring win over Georgia State—which is not Georgia Southern in name or football ability—the Badgers switched quarterbacks from senior Bart Houston to redshirt freshman Alex Hornibrook, and the results were better than expected.
The results also weren't quite as good as the final score would have you believe. Wisconsin's drives in non-garbage time:
- 17-play, 65-yard TD drive requiring two fourth-down conversions
- six-play, 28-yard TD drive set up by an interception
- one-play, five-yard TD "drive" after MSU's punter dropped a high snap
- ten-play, 54-yard drive for a 41-yard FG
- six-play, 31-yard drive ending in a fumble on 2nd-and-ten
- seven-play, 45-yard end-of-half drive ending in a Hornibrook interception with one second left
- ten-play, 57-yard drive ending in a punt
- two three-and-outs
Both fourth-quarter drives, after UW already had a 30-6 lead, were three-and-outs. The defense added another touchdown on a fumble return. Meanwhile, one could argue their best drive of the day averaged 3.8 yards per play. Even taking out the two garbage-time drives, the Badgers only averaged 5.0 yards per play.
Personnel. Seth's diagram [click to embiggen]:
Yes, Wisconsin rotates two fullbacks who are both quite good, which would be the most Wisconsin thing if Harbaugh hadn't come along.
Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Beef. Wisconsin rarely goes into shotgun or fields more than two receivers unless faced with an obvious passing down. And, again, two-fullback rotation.
Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? MANBALL, as you probably guessed. Paul Chryst is very much a part of the Barry Alvarez coaching tree; before a three-year stint as Pitt's head coach, he was Wisconsin's offensive coordinator from 2005-2011, and he played QB for UW in the late '80s. While Chryst has largely been an inside zone guy, he called a lot of power in this game for reasons I'll get into later.
Hurry it up or grind it out? A surprisingly quick grind? UW huddles between most snaps and don't ever try to tempo the defense, but they're an above-average 45th in adjusted pace. I'm honestly not sure how to explain that. They're a good deal slower than UCF and Colorado, and despite what David Jones would have you believe, much faster to get plays off than Penn State.
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown.]
Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Hornibrook has only rushed twice for one yard on non-sack carries and doesn't look like a threat to take off. He also had a fumble that was partially on their center getting pushed into the pocket but mostly on Hornibrook declining to move into open space:
Hornibrook's pocket presence was mostly good, but this was easily avoidable. He gets a 2 on the Dilithium Scale.
Dangerman: Score one for camp hype over mgoheuristics: left tackle Ryan Ramczyk, a D-III transfer and first-year starter, is PFF's third-highest graded tackle in the country (+13.2 overall through four games, +9.2 run block). His matchup with Michigan's edge rushers is being billed by PFF as the top head-to-head battle in the Big Ten this week:
Ramczyk has been an elite performer through the first month of the season, as he’s been outstanding in all phases every week. He is at the top of the tackle heap in terms of run blocking, and did not yield his first pressure of the season this past weekend against Michigan State. This puts him third in the country in pass blocking efficiency — a remarkable feat considering Wisconsin has already played the likes of LSU (and Arden Key, our fourth-highest graded EDGE player) and Michigan State.
Ramczyk looks especially good in the run game, and he's held off some quality pass-rushers, though Michigan could be a different animal. The lone pressure he's allowed came when Malik McDowell—a similar size/athleticism combo to Rashan Gary and Chris Wormley—made him whiff entirely. Arden Key, the LSU DE he successfully kept at bay, is a very different type of edge-rusher at 6'6", 238 pounds.
When Hornibrook needs to pick up a first down, he often looks to tight end Troy Fumagalli, who's grading out well as both a receiver and run-blocker on PFF. Fumagalli is averaging a hair under nine yards per target, and Hornibrook trusts him enough to throw to him in some tight windows. Really tight windows.
This was a rather miraculous completion, and also part of a theme for Hornibrook.
Zook Factor: Chryst is normally quite conservative, but an injury to kicker Rafael Gaglianone that held him out last week caused a change in tactics. Wisconsin's first scoring drive was a 17-play, 65-yard slog featuring two fourth-down conversions in MSU territory. Gaglianone is a very good kicker (7/8 FGs this year), but I'm kinda hoping he's able to come back so Chryst stops making correct game management decisions; he's questionable with a back ailment.
For what it's worth, UW's backup kicker, Andrew Endicott, drilled a 41-yarder right down the middle on his lone field goal attempt, the first of his career. UW's kicking game may be more viable than Michigan's if Kenny Allen still looks as off as he has the last two weeks.
Chryst did have some issues managing the clock. Wisconsin had a potential scoring drive going at the end of the first half after running out to their 42 from their 18 in three plays, but Chryst let about ten seconds run off the clock despite having all three timeouts. A sack forced UW to take a timeout with eight seconds left and go for one more play; after flip-flopping between attempting a field goal and throwing for the end zone, taking another timeout in the process, Chryst chose the latter and Hornibrook threw a pick. UW went into halftime with a timeout still in their pocket.
HenneChart: Hornibrook graded out as mediocre by PFF and above-average here. Before garbage time, when I stopped charting, he displayed good accuracy, making a few gorgeous throws with only a couple I thought were off-target or borderline. His issues cropped up in decision-making; two of the DOs would've been BRs if Hornibrook hadn't found a way to hit small windows between multiple defenders:
| Opponent | DO | CA | MA | IN | BR | TA | BA | PR | SCR | DSR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan State | 3 | 8 (3) | 1 | 1 | 4* | -- | -- | 4 | -- | 69% |
That said, man, he had a few incredible throws. His first attempt of the game was a third-down conversion to Fumagalli with Malik McDowell bearing down on him unblocked:
And this is a perfect throw:
I'm still not entirely sure what to expect from him, though. Not all of his throws into tight spaces were good ideas. This should've been intercepted by Demetrious Cox, who Hornibrook simply didn't see before letting it fly:
He also benefited from some coverage issues by MSU. This third-and-11 turned into a simple game of pitch-and-catch when Darian Hicks pulled a JT Floyd in off coverage:
you may see this again in a month or so.
I also didn't chart Hornibrook's interception since it came with one second left in the first half, but he somehow managed to throw it 12 yards short of the end zone and well inside from the MSU 37—I'm honestly not sure what he was trying to do.
Hornibrook had moments where he looked great; he also had a few that Michigan's secondary should be able to exploit better than MSU's. There's not a lot of data to go on; what we have makes him look like a talented, accurate freshman QB who's prone to making some freshman decisions.
OVERVIEW
This is the first team Michigan has faced that utilizes a variety of formations, though they were predictable in their utilization. Wisconsin usually came out in I-form and would go to the gun whenever they got behind schedule. Three of their five runs from the shotgun occurred on that end-of-half drive when MSU basically ceded big yards on any run by alignment.
| Formations | Run | Pass | PA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gun | 5 | 15 | 1 |
| I-Form | 15 | 1 | 4 |
| Ace | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| Pistol | -- | -- | -- |
| Heavy | 5 | -- | 2 |
The down distribution also shows a clear pattern:
| Down | Run | Pass | PA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 16 | 4 | 2 |
| 2nd | 8 | 7 | 3 |
| 3rd | 4 | 9 | 2 |
Wisconsin wants to run until they have to pass but they had a tough time establishing the ground game. The Badgers rushed for 133 yards on 39 non-sack carries (3.4 YPC) against an MSU defense that's been good but not great against the run so far this year and didn't have Riley Bullough (or, for a large chunk of this game, Jon Reschke).
You probably noticed Corey Clement wasn't listed as a dangerman, and while he was hurt last year, I wouldn't blame you for being confused by that. He didn't have many chances to break into the open field, but when he did, he only got what was there. He doesn't look like the pre-injury Clement and the stats so far back that up; he's averaging 3.9 yards per carry and only 3.8 yards per highlight opportunity (additional yardage on runs that go five yards past the LOS), and he's grading out at -0.9 on the season to PFF. Backup RB Dare Ogunbowale is a solid receiver out of the backfield and had a nice blitz pickup, but he doesn't look like much more than a third-down back; his productivity as the feature back last year is evidence that is the case. The two fullbacks, Austin Ramesh and Alec Ingold, managed to consistently grind out yards on FB dives—they combined for 22 yards on five carries—and they both looked very good as lead blockers.
The problem is mostly up front. Wisconsin has three good-to-excellent linemen, one mediocre tackle, and a downright bad center. Even though the blocky/catchy types are excellent blockers, the center alone is often enough to bring down what's otherwise a well-blocked play. Michael Deiter, a very good interior lineman, moved from center to left guard for the MSU game because of a foot injury to Micah Kapoi. While Deiter combined with Ramczyk to provide lots of push on the left side, his replacement at center, redshirt sophomore Brett Connors, undid a lot of their work with a really rough game.
On multiple occasions, Connors moved to the second level without providing a chip on a DT who one of the guards could not reach without help; this is something Brian has brought up when talking about Kyle Kalis's issues in the past, and it's a great way to cede a TFL. He'd also had a couple flat-out whiffs on DTs lined up right over him.
He was worse as a pass-blocker. The sack on the end-of-half drive came when Connors did something I've never seen before—on a three-man rush, he's singled up on a DT while the DEs are both doubled, and he initially blocks his man before, I don't know, hearing the ice cream truck or something?
I posted that in the mgoslack chat and Seth correctly identified this as "Breaking Madden-level awareness." I cannot explain why he did that, and that wasn't the only time his pass-blocking and pre-play identification were issues. Two delayed blitzes from MSU hit home up the gut without resistance; whether that's on the quarterback, center, or coaching won't matter much to Don Brown.
Wisconsin's best runs came when they were able to lessen Connors's impact. They accomplished this by running more power than I've seen from a Chryst team. They're able to get their three best linemen opening up holes in the same area when they pull right guard Beau Benschwazel and run behind the Deiter/Ramczyk duo:
Even if Connors is replaced, UW should have a rough spot on the OL; Kapoi (-3.2) and Jon Dietzen (-4.9) have both graded out worse than Connors on PFF on less than half of UW's 302 total snaps, though after watching this game I'm surprised Connors only has a -1.4 in his 80 snaps so far this year.
Right tackle Jacob Maxwell is the last piece of the O-line puzzle. He's grading out below-average in both run- and pass-blocking and will have his hands full with Michigan's edge defenders. Hornibrook turfed a promising bubble screen in this game because Maxwell allowed immediate pressure from the only defensive lineman in position to disrupt such a quick-hitting play, and said DL was not Malik McDowell.
The passing game is UW's best shot to consistently move the ball. I like both of their starting receivers, Jazz Peavy and Robert Wheelwright. While Peavy didn't bring in a couple catchable balls, he ran some very sharp routes to free himself downfield despite lacking top-end speed, and while he's listed at 6-foot-even he plays bigger than that. Wheelwright is a bigger possession receiver who did his best work over the middle, and he also picked up a first down on a bubble screen with a Darboh-like shedding of a defensive back. Add in Fumagalli and there are three quality pass-catchers to account for in addition to Ogunbowale coming out of the backfield. I didn't see enough of third WR George Rushing, who's caught all eight of his targets but for only 82 yards, to form a real opinion on him.
I expect Michigan to put the clamps on this offense. The defensive line is up to the task of matching the Ramczyk/Deiter duo, and the rest of the offensive line will have their hands full taking on the rest of M's front seven; based on how they looked in this game, they could have a lot of trouble with Don Brown's myriad fronts and blitzes. Unless UW shows major improvement in the run game, they'll become one-dimensional, and that's asking for trouble against this defense. Michigan's main question on defense at this point—who's the third corner after Clark's injury and is he any good?—isn't something Wisconsin is built to test that much. Hornibrook will need to play mistake-free to keep Wisconsin in this, and he played with fire on a few throws against MSU in addition to the lost fumble.
I'm not ready to say Michigan will cover a surprisingly large 10.5-point spread before digging into the UW defense, but my confidence has grown that M will win this game.