Wisconsin Football: Report card for Badgers following win vs. Illinois
Grading the performance of Wisconsin football in their win over Illinois.
After Wisconsin football beat down Illinois in this first game, let’s take a look at how the Badgers performed. In this report card, we will look at the offense, the defense, and the special teams. Let’s start with the offense.
Offense
The offense for Wisconsin football was a bit of an unknown coming into this game. They lost a ton of contributors from last year. Jack Coan and Jonathan Taylor are two of the biggest pieces they needed to replace.
Graham Mertz, the highly touted recruit who came to Madison last season, got his chance to take over the program, and he did not disappoint. Mertz looked calm and collected all night. He has certain confidence or swagger about him that we haven’t seen in a Wisconsin quarterback in recent memory. The former All-American Bowl MVP came in hot and left any concerns at the door. Completing his first 17 passes and 20-of-21 total for 248 yards and five touchdowns is a hell of a debut. He made some very nice passes but also didn’t take unnecessary risks either.
Badger fans weren’t the only ones to take notice of Mertz’s performance either.
Wisconsin football is synonymous with running the football. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like a typical Wisconsin team running the ball last night. Whether it was the running backs or the offensive line, none of the backs could really get going.
Nakia Watson started, but towards the end of the game when the Badgers were trying to chew up the clock, they turned to Garrett Groshek. Groshek is usually the third-down back, but he was the most productive runner the Badgers had last night. He finished with 70 yards on 13 carries. Watson had 19 carries for 62 yards.
Altogether, the running game managed just 182 yards on the ground. Last year, the Badgers averaged 233 rushing yards per game. It’s early, but Wisconsin will need to get the running game going because they won’t be able to depend on Mertz having this type of game every week.
In the receiving department, Mertz and Ferguson had a nice connection. Ferguson caught three of Mertz’s five touchdown passes. Danny Davis caught a pair of passes including a 53 bomb. If Davis can be a deep threat for the Badgers all season, this will be a tough offense to stop.
Although the Badgers didn’t need the running game to win, it is still a little concerning that they couldn’t get it going until late in the game. Had it been more effective, this offense would have earned an “A+” all day, even with the turnover that turned into Illinois’ only points. But with the lack of effectiveness on the ground, I’ll bump them down a bit.