There is a lot of energy around the 2-0 Wisconsin Badgers. There's even some hope that Wisconsin can hang with Alabama. That could be due to the clunker that the Crimson Tide has already had this season, mixed with a clearly better Wisconsin team. However, there's still a glaring problem and even Luke Fickell knows it: the offensive line.
In his weekly press conference, Fickell stated that the entire team has improved at every position group, but quickly added that the offensive line is still being refined. He didn't say it was worse than last year, nor the same; he didn't even say it was better (which it hasn't been). He said they are trying to figure it out.
The Badgers' achilles heel right now is a shuffled offensive line
Related: Kalen DeBoer drops an Alabama quote that will give Wisconsin fans hope
Last week, the Badgers struggled to get any offensive continuity in the first half mostly because the offensive line couldn't run block. The poor running backs were running into defenders almost immediately. Jeff Grimes pivoted with quick passes and other adjustments to help the line out, which led to a big second half.
That's not going to fly against Alabama. If they roll out the offensive line unit they had last week and they perform the same, it's going to be ugly.
The Badgers NEED to have an offensive line in order to live into any of the optimism.
The first week against Miami (OH), we saw a left tackle who struggled, but the interior held up. Then week two came around, and Luke Fickell shuffled things around. Put Riley Mahlman from right tackle to left tackle, and had Emerson Mandell play right tackle. Then the problem was the center position with an injury to Jake Renfro. Depth piece Kerry Kodanko slid into his spot, and it didn't go well at all.
Wisconsin really needs Renfro this week to have success. It's fun to have the optimism, but if the offensive line can't hold up, we might as well start packing the luggage in Tuscaloosa now and head back to Madison.