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B1G Thoughts: Wisconsin is suffering from an identity crisis
JordanW330 via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images
Wisconsin has lost all semblance of an identity, plus a big game in the Big House.
Every week after the Big Ten games, I will bring you some B1G thoughts on everything that happened! This will include analysis, stats, key players, moments, and more. With the Big Ten expanding from 14 teams to 18 teams in 2024, we will have a bunch of storylines to follow.
Ryan Day and Ohio State are all in for the 2024 season. Is Oregon a national championship contender or will they stumble in their first Big Ten season? How do the former members of the Big Ten West fair in the new divisionless format? This article tracks all these storylines and more as the Big Ten hopes to win back-to-back national championships.
Check out the I-80 Football Show for more in-depth analysis and to preview the next week of B1G games.
Wisconsin has lost its identity and it’s Luke Fickell’s fault. For decades the Badgers have won with a particular style of football: they fielded a top defense, an NFL-Like offensive line, and a superstar running back. For years it was almost a guarantee that Wisconsin would put their starting offensive line and running back into the NFL.
Under Paul Chryst, that identity started to fail, and they fired him trying to get ahead of the curve with the 12-team playoff and incoming Big Ten expansion. They went out and hired Luke Fickell away from Cincinnati, which was considered a steal because Fickell has turned down jobs for years and was the only coach to take a Group of Five team to the College Football Playoff. It looked like everything was trending up for the Wisconsin Badgers.
Instead, Fickell came in and immediately turned his back on Wisconsin culture, and most importantly he turned his back on himself. Cincinnati made the playoffs by being a tough defense with a strong running game and a quarterback who makes limited mistakes. As a midwestern kid, Fickell won in typical Big Ten style, identifying underrated talent, developing them into NFL Draft picks, and hitting teams in the mouth.
Instead of building on that identity with the additional resources offered by the Badgers and the Big Ten, Fickell immediately went out and hired Phil Longo to bring in an offensive system he has never worked with and has never been used at Wisconsin. They hit the transfer portal to find a quarterback and playmakers to fit the new offense, but Longo was a bad hire.
Wisconsin never needed to change its identity — look at Georgia and Michigan. They just needed to bring in better talent and bring back the development that fell off under Chryst. Instead, Fickell and Longo have them in purgatory, because they no longer have an identity to fall back on.
Ari Wasserman of On3 said it best: “To modernize this football program and make its offense more open, Luke Fickell’s Badgers have turned into a team that doesn’t do anything particularly well.”
Fickell needs to get back to his midwestern roots and what made Wisconsin successful for the last two decades ,or he is going to run this program into the ground to be passed up by the likes of Indiana and Nebraska.
Indiana is 3-0, and so far has scored 31, 77, and 42 points in its wins. After three weeks the Hoosiers are outscoring their opponents 150-23. This is the point where I remind you that they have not played a team with a pulse.
That being said, if you look at their schedule they don’t play many teams with a pulse overall. Indiana got blessed by the football gods with maybe the easiest schedule in the Big Ten, and new head coach Curt Cignetti is already proving to be ready to win now after bringing his James Madison players with him and taking Kurtis Rourke from Ohio to play quarterback. In their nine remaining games, Indiana plays Charlotte, Maryland, Northwestern, Nebraska, Washington, Michigan State, Michigan, Ohio State and Purdue.
It’s hard to gauge where Indiana is based on who they’ve played so far, but it’s safe to assume this team is going to exceed expectations and should at minimum be a bowl team. Outside of Ohio State and a struggling Michigan, there is not a single program that enters this season in a significantly better place than them. At worst, seven of their nine games are toss-ups, but I can almost guarantee they’ll beat Charlotte and Purdue.
Hiring Cignetti was indeed significant. A part of it is a favorable schedule, but he has already lifted the floor for the Hoosiers. The question that remains is how he builds this program long-term and develops players when he can’t just bring 13 starters from his previous school.
That’s a future Cignetti problem. In 2024, he has Indiana set up to exceed expectations.
Week 3’s impromptu Rivalry Week was awesome. People for years have clamored for rivalry games to be played earlier in the season, but as an Ohio State fan I’d be furious if The Game wasn’t played as the last game of the season.
The easy fix? A lot of schools have secondary rivals. Whether they are in-state teams, old rivals from previous conferences, or just bad blood, a lot of teams have rivalries that could be played more often, and many of them were accidentally played this past week. We had Oregon-Oregon State, Washington-Washington State, Notre Dame-Purdue, and Maryland-Virginia in the Big Ten. While some of these rivalries have more history and disdain than others, they were all great games that should be played more often.
Outside the Big Ten, we also got The Backyard Brawl, Pitt-WVU, Cincinnati-Miami(OH), Utah-Utah State, and Georgia-Kentucky. On paper, there were not many things to be excited about this week besides the reigniting of old rivalries, and outside of Purdue-Notre Dame and Oregon-Oregon State, all of these rivalries led to great games.
College football does not have a commissioner, so there is no one governing body to facilitate this. We may have just gotten lucky this week, but I would love to see more of these secondary rivalries played in the same week moving forward. Plus, some of these games need to be played yearly, i.e. Oregon-Oregon State, Washington-Washington State, and the Backyard Brawl.
Why not sign a long-term contract and play in Week 3 for the foreseeable future. Who says no? If we can’t get it nationally, can B1G Commissioner Tony Petitti bring this to the Big Ten — I’d at least accept that.
Give me the battle of the state schools in Week 3: Oregon-Oregon State, Washington-Washinton State, Iowa-Iowa State, Michigan-Michigan State, Penn State-Pitt, USC-UCLA (since they don’t play on the last week of the season) and throw in Maryland-Virginia for good measure. If you want to make it a thing, you can add Purdue-Notre Dame and Illinois-Northwestern.
That would be a great marketing week for a conference that loves to make money. Someone put me in touch with the Big Ten!
Michigan won. If you follow the national media, this was a “bounce back” game. I understand that I see Michigan through scarlett colored glasses, but in this article and on the podcast I try to step outside of fan brain and set the rivalry aside.
With that said, Michigan did not look good, and some concerns continue to pop up even in a victory. Davis Warren threw three interceptions against a pretty bad defense. They also allowed 18 points, and you could say it was against the backups, but in a 12-16 game season you need backups more than ever, and Michigan has no depth.
On top of that, it may not be major and I hope it’s not, but star tight end Colston Loveland left the game with injury. Michigan would have loved to have a dominant performance to prep for USC coming to the Big House, but instead there are more questions than answers and their season is at risk of getting out of control.
After an early season off week, USC gets to take their seemingly improved defense to Ann Arbor to play an offense that has no pulse. The only positive for Michigan was that they started to run the ball again, and for them to win this game they need to run well. This matchup is interesting because Michigan has looked worse than expected, and USC has looked better.
I think that USC’s defense is fake good, and overrated by playing a bad LSU team, but we will learn a lot about their ability to tackle and play gap sound disciplined football against Michigan. In Michigan’s case, this is redemption for a defense that many people believed would be good enough to carry a bad offense. Michigan’s defense got exposed against Texas. Can it keep them in the game and affect Miller Moss in his third start?
While early in the season still, this game is a must-win for both teams to create positive momentum for the season. A USC win and this team may be real and could contend for a playoff spot in their first season in the Big Ten. A Michigan win and this season may be redeemable.
They won’t be a contender this season, but they’re bordering on missing a bowl game if they can’t figure out some of these issues — and fast.
Every week football provides plays that send the Twitterverse into a frenzy. One of the best things about live sports is getting to experience these moments together. Here are two of my favorite plays from this week.
For years the speed option seemed to fall out of the college football zeitgeist, but it is making a comeback. Oregon ran it to perfection for a touchdown against Oregon State.
Why kneel and take the ball at the 25 when you can run it 100 yards to the crib?
Follow The I-80 Football Show on YouTube: @JordanW330.
Subscribe to the podcast: RSS | Apple | Spotify | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio
Connect with me on Twitter: @JordanW330
Follow I-80 Football Show on Instagram: @I80FootballShow
Continue reading...
JordanW330 via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images
Wisconsin has lost all semblance of an identity, plus a big game in the Big House.
Every week after the Big Ten games, I will bring you some B1G thoughts on everything that happened! This will include analysis, stats, key players, moments, and more. With the Big Ten expanding from 14 teams to 18 teams in 2024, we will have a bunch of storylines to follow.
Ryan Day and Ohio State are all in for the 2024 season. Is Oregon a national championship contender or will they stumble in their first Big Ten season? How do the former members of the Big Ten West fair in the new divisionless format? This article tracks all these storylines and more as the Big Ten hopes to win back-to-back national championships.
Check out the I-80 Football Show for more in-depth analysis and to preview the next week of B1G games.
Wisconsin is lost, and it starts with Luke Fickell
Wisconsin has lost its identity and it’s Luke Fickell’s fault. For decades the Badgers have won with a particular style of football: they fielded a top defense, an NFL-Like offensive line, and a superstar running back. For years it was almost a guarantee that Wisconsin would put their starting offensive line and running back into the NFL.
Under Paul Chryst, that identity started to fail, and they fired him trying to get ahead of the curve with the 12-team playoff and incoming Big Ten expansion. They went out and hired Luke Fickell away from Cincinnati, which was considered a steal because Fickell has turned down jobs for years and was the only coach to take a Group of Five team to the College Football Playoff. It looked like everything was trending up for the Wisconsin Badgers.
Instead, Fickell came in and immediately turned his back on Wisconsin culture, and most importantly he turned his back on himself. Cincinnati made the playoffs by being a tough defense with a strong running game and a quarterback who makes limited mistakes. As a midwestern kid, Fickell won in typical Big Ten style, identifying underrated talent, developing them into NFL Draft picks, and hitting teams in the mouth.
Instead of building on that identity with the additional resources offered by the Badgers and the Big Ten, Fickell immediately went out and hired Phil Longo to bring in an offensive system he has never worked with and has never been used at Wisconsin. They hit the transfer portal to find a quarterback and playmakers to fit the new offense, but Longo was a bad hire.
Wisconsin never needed to change its identity — look at Georgia and Michigan. They just needed to bring in better talent and bring back the development that fell off under Chryst. Instead, Fickell and Longo have them in purgatory, because they no longer have an identity to fall back on.
Ari Wasserman of On3 said it best: “To modernize this football program and make its offense more open, Luke Fickell’s Badgers have turned into a team that doesn’t do anything particularly well.”
Fickell needs to get back to his midwestern roots and what made Wisconsin successful for the last two decades ,or he is going to run this program into the ground to be passed up by the likes of Indiana and Nebraska.
Hiring Cignetti proving to be Cignificant
Indiana is 3-0, and so far has scored 31, 77, and 42 points in its wins. After three weeks the Hoosiers are outscoring their opponents 150-23. This is the point where I remind you that they have not played a team with a pulse.
That being said, if you look at their schedule they don’t play many teams with a pulse overall. Indiana got blessed by the football gods with maybe the easiest schedule in the Big Ten, and new head coach Curt Cignetti is already proving to be ready to win now after bringing his James Madison players with him and taking Kurtis Rourke from Ohio to play quarterback. In their nine remaining games, Indiana plays Charlotte, Maryland, Northwestern, Nebraska, Washington, Michigan State, Michigan, Ohio State and Purdue.
It’s hard to gauge where Indiana is based on who they’ve played so far, but it’s safe to assume this team is going to exceed expectations and should at minimum be a bowl team. Outside of Ohio State and a struggling Michigan, there is not a single program that enters this season in a significantly better place than them. At worst, seven of their nine games are toss-ups, but I can almost guarantee they’ll beat Charlotte and Purdue.
Hiring Cignetti was indeed significant. A part of it is a favorable schedule, but he has already lifted the floor for the Hoosiers. The question that remains is how he builds this program long-term and develops players when he can’t just bring 13 starters from his previous school.
That’s a future Cignetti problem. In 2024, he has Indiana set up to exceed expectations.
Week 3 Rivalry Week was gold!
Week 3’s impromptu Rivalry Week was awesome. People for years have clamored for rivalry games to be played earlier in the season, but as an Ohio State fan I’d be furious if The Game wasn’t played as the last game of the season.
The easy fix? A lot of schools have secondary rivals. Whether they are in-state teams, old rivals from previous conferences, or just bad blood, a lot of teams have rivalries that could be played more often, and many of them were accidentally played this past week. We had Oregon-Oregon State, Washington-Washington State, Notre Dame-Purdue, and Maryland-Virginia in the Big Ten. While some of these rivalries have more history and disdain than others, they were all great games that should be played more often.
Outside the Big Ten, we also got The Backyard Brawl, Pitt-WVU, Cincinnati-Miami(OH), Utah-Utah State, and Georgia-Kentucky. On paper, there were not many things to be excited about this week besides the reigniting of old rivalries, and outside of Purdue-Notre Dame and Oregon-Oregon State, all of these rivalries led to great games.
College football does not have a commissioner, so there is no one governing body to facilitate this. We may have just gotten lucky this week, but I would love to see more of these secondary rivalries played in the same week moving forward. Plus, some of these games need to be played yearly, i.e. Oregon-Oregon State, Washington-Washington State, and the Backyard Brawl.
Why not sign a long-term contract and play in Week 3 for the foreseeable future. Who says no? If we can’t get it nationally, can B1G Commissioner Tony Petitti bring this to the Big Ten — I’d at least accept that.
Give me the battle of the state schools in Week 3: Oregon-Oregon State, Washington-Washinton State, Iowa-Iowa State, Michigan-Michigan State, Penn State-Pitt, USC-UCLA (since they don’t play on the last week of the season) and throw in Maryland-Virginia for good measure. If you want to make it a thing, you can add Purdue-Notre Dame and Illinois-Northwestern.
That would be a great marketing week for a conference that loves to make money. Someone put me in touch with the Big Ten!
Big House, big game, B1G
Michigan won. If you follow the national media, this was a “bounce back” game. I understand that I see Michigan through scarlett colored glasses, but in this article and on the podcast I try to step outside of fan brain and set the rivalry aside.
With that said, Michigan did not look good, and some concerns continue to pop up even in a victory. Davis Warren threw three interceptions against a pretty bad defense. They also allowed 18 points, and you could say it was against the backups, but in a 12-16 game season you need backups more than ever, and Michigan has no depth.
On top of that, it may not be major and I hope it’s not, but star tight end Colston Loveland left the game with injury. Michigan would have loved to have a dominant performance to prep for USC coming to the Big House, but instead there are more questions than answers and their season is at risk of getting out of control.
After an early season off week, USC gets to take their seemingly improved defense to Ann Arbor to play an offense that has no pulse. The only positive for Michigan was that they started to run the ball again, and for them to win this game they need to run well. This matchup is interesting because Michigan has looked worse than expected, and USC has looked better.
I think that USC’s defense is fake good, and overrated by playing a bad LSU team, but we will learn a lot about their ability to tackle and play gap sound disciplined football against Michigan. In Michigan’s case, this is redemption for a defense that many people believed would be good enough to carry a bad offense. Michigan’s defense got exposed against Texas. Can it keep them in the game and affect Miller Moss in his third start?
While early in the season still, this game is a must-win for both teams to create positive momentum for the season. A USC win and this team may be real and could contend for a playoff spot in their first season in the Big Ten. A Michigan win and this season may be redeemable.
They won’t be a contender this season, but they’re bordering on missing a bowl game if they can’t figure out some of these issues — and fast.
Plays of the Week!
Every week football provides plays that send the Twitterverse into a frenzy. One of the best things about live sports is getting to experience these moments together. Here are two of my favorite plays from this week.
For years the speed option seemed to fall out of the college football zeitgeist, but it is making a comeback. Oregon ran it to perfection for a touchdown against Oregon State.
Why kneel and take the ball at the 25 when you can run it 100 yards to the crib?
FROM END ZONE TO END ZONE
This @MSU_Football TD is incredible #B1GFootball on @BigTenNetowrk pic.twitter.com/LvHmjaoGhC
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) September 14, 2024
Follow The I-80 Football Show on YouTube: @JordanW330.
Subscribe to the podcast: RSS | Apple | Spotify | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio
Connect with me on Twitter: @JordanW330
Follow I-80 Football Show on Instagram: @I80FootballShow
Continue reading...