Wisconsin Football: 3 observations from the loss to Notre Dame

Well, another disappointing outcome in a big game for the Wisconsin football team. There’s no sugarcoating it. It’s not even fair to say the whole team; instead, it’s the offense. It flat-out stunk.

Again.

I let it sit over the weekend, hoping I would feel better about it and try to find some positive about the offense.

Well, I couldn’t.

So instead of finding three positives from the loss, we are just going to look at three things I noticed about this Wisconsin football team after the loss to the Fighting Irish on Saturday.

1. This defense is scary good

Let’s try to start with something positive. The defense. If there’s one thing that’s going right for the Wisconsin football team right now, it’s the defense. They held the Irish to 248 total yards, 67 less than the Wisconsin offense gained. The Badgers gave up just nine rushing yards total. Nine. That’s insane. They also gave up just 20 points. The other 21 points were scored when the Irish returned a kickoff for a touchdown and the two pick-sixes from Mertz at the end of the game.

They tallied up six sacks against the weak and undermanned Irish offensive line. Nick Herbig led the team with two sacks, Matt Henningsen, Rodas Johnson, and C.J. Goetz each added a sack, while Keeanu Benton and Isaiah Mullens shared a sack.

This defense is not the reason the Badgers are 1-2 on the season. They will likely finish near the top of the rankings in defensive stats at the end of the year, but the team’s record probably won’t reflect it if the offense can’t figure it out.

2. The offense is stale and uncreative

Where are all of the pre-snap motion and jet sweeps that we have grown accustomed to over the past couple of years? On paper, this Wisconsin offense has plenty of weapons. Players like Danny Davis and Kendric Pryor should be getting more involved in the game than they are. The problem is getting the ball to them.

The Badgers have had little to no pre-snap motion. They aren’t making the defense think about all of the different possibilities of what play may be coming at them. By adding those jet sweeps, the defense has to take into account the possibility that the ball could go to the man in motion, or handed off to the running back, or the ball being passed. Now, it feels like defenses know exactly what is coming.

If I’m playing Wisconsin, I’m going to stack the box on first and second down to stop the run and force Mertz to beat me through the air.

Paul Chryst and his offensive coaches need to figure something out to help Mertz get some easy completions. When the line isn’t holding up, you have to get the ball out quickly. Nothing that Chryst is doing is creative. This is a stale offense that consistently puts itself in 3rd-and-long situations, hence the reason they were just 1-of-15 on 3rd down conversions on Saturday.

3. It’s getting very difficult to defend the play of Graham Mertz

Fans were extremely excited for Mertz to come to the Wisconsin football program. Being the highest-rated quarterback to every commit to Wisconsin was a big deal. After years of having the running backs and offensive line carry the offense, fans were excited to have a quarterback who could sling the ball and make plays your average Wisconsin quarterback didn’t generally do. Outside of Russell Wilson, the Badgers had ‘game managers’ at the quarterback position for the longest time. Many thought Mertz was going to break that mold.

Well, we may have jumped the gun a bit there.

In 2020, Mertz didn’t look great outside of their first game against Illinois. Many, myself included, attributed that to him getting covid and being banged up for most of the season. It was also easy to point at the fact that Danny Davis and Kendric Pryor missed most of the season as well.

So the optimism for 2021 was high because he was healthy, had another year within the offense, and had most of his weapons returning with the addition of Chez Mellusi as well.

Well, this year hasn’t been any better. In fact, it might even be worse. He is a turnover machine. He can’t seem to handle pressure either. In situations where he needs to make a play, he seemingly throws the ball into pressure and it gets picked. He has one touchdown and six interceptions this year. It’s horrific.

Granted, the offensive line has been rough. The constant switching of the line is a problem in itself. the playcalling (see above) has been atrocious and hasn’t helped Mertz much either. But even when there is a pass he should make, the ball will end up short, too high, or right to a defender.

I was all aboard the Graham Mertz hype train entering the season, but it’s getting very hard to defend his poor play anymore. The only problem is, I’m not sure there’s a better option for the Wisconsin football team at quarterback, which is quite a scary thought.