| 17 October 2010
I never felt right about this game. I never feel good about Wisconsin. They play a game totally different than what we play against week in and week out. This is old time slug it out Woody and Bo classic Big Ten football. In the fight game there is an old expression, styles make fights. We are just not built in this day and age for a Wisconsin. We are built to play for national championships. That means that we have a speed defense that is built to rush the passer and linebackers, usually only two on the field at the same time, that are as good and sometimes better against the pass than they are at filling holes.
I have not had it in me to look back at this game yet. I wanted to see if they were doing something different up front than they had been doing all season. Then I found an easy excuse to not watch the game by reminding myself that I did not watch Wisconsin closely enough to know if what they did against us was something they have been doing all along or did they change it up. They got into us and knocked us off the ball for a quarter and a half. That would be the only criticism I would level against the staff. This was a surprise that they were going to come out and ram the ball right at us until we stopped it? Again, we made adjustments and won the second half and at least had a split of the second quarter. It was too little too late.
They built a lead that took us out of our game. I think we could have run against this team. We had to throw the ball. That was the other devastating reality of this game. We are not very good at receiver. I am shocked that I am saying that. I thought that was one of the deepest areas of this program. We have one receiver. Pryor has lost confidence in Posey. I don't blame him. I have lost confidence in him too. I don't know where his head is but it is not in the football field. I was shocked in the first quarter when Pryor threw behind him. On the replay it showed that Posey should have sat down in the soft spot of the zone. That is where Pryor threw the ball to. All game they were not on the same page. The same thing happened against Illinois. I was one of those worried about him going pro early. Right now if we were deeper he might not even be starting. Stoneburner is still hurt. That really impacts Pryor, especially when it leaves him with one receiver, Sanzenbacher, who is reading the game properly and on the same page.
I cannot remember a poorer performance out of our linebackers and safeties. The only linebacker that is going to get a passing grade for this game is Sweat. Rolle was frequently out of position and run over when he was in the right place. Losing Homan early was huge if for no other reason than Newsome was not where he needed to be all night. Great instinctive player and great athlete. He does not know the defense yet. Just off the top of my head he was caught twice not picking up the three wide set where he was supposed to cover the slot guy and they had big plays out of it.
All that said I think this goes back to special teams. There was a 10 point swing off special teams. Nobody can tell me this would not have been a different game if we are not down 7 off the opening play of the game. The missed field goal hurt too but I think if we don't give up another kick return for a touchdown we could have seen a different game.
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