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September 16, 2000
Here are the game grades from the Cincinnati game.
QB: C-
Still, Bollinger gets some credit for making plays at the end of the game, including some big third down throws on the last drive in regulation.
RB: B
A gutty, if unspectacular effort from the backup tailback.
WR:D
Evans did come up big late in the game with some big plays and should thrive once moved back to the #3 receiver role.
TE: C
OL: C-
Wisconsin did a pretty good job of blocking the interior late in the game despite the various loaded fronts.
DL: B
Overall, the line made Kenner deliver the ball quickly despite their quick hitting passing attack, and did a reasonable job of controlling a pair of talented running backs without a lot of linebacker support.
A solid effort.
LB: C-
Jeff Mack bit on a huge play action pass, surrendering a big TD pass late in the game.
DB: C
Devery Hughes was caught face guarding on a number of plays, and out of position to make a play on the ball.
Mike Echols was picked on contstantly underneath, though to his credit generally played a bit tighter in the second half.
I thought Boese's coverage was pretty good and BJ Tucker was not thrown at much, if at all.
Special Teams: B
Jason Schick made two big coverage tackles late in the game as well.
The special teams continues to make the little plays that keep them in the game despite the periodic struggles of the offense and defense.
Here are how Badgermaniac's Keys to the Game against Cincinnati panned out.
1.) Moving Monds
2.) Throw Brooks Throw, See Brooks Throw
3.) Bring back the handball court
4.) First down effeciency
5.)Field position
PREDICTION
Here are Badgermaniac's Keys to the Game against Cincinnati.
1.) Moving Monds
2.) Throw Brooks Throw, See Brooks Throw
3.) Bring back the handball court
4.) First down effeciency
5.)Field position
PREDICTION
The Howell computer formula has Wisconsin as a 20 point favorite and puts their odds of winning at 83%. Predicted score of 32-12.
Here are some quick early season comparisons between the Bearcats and Badgers (national rank):
Team Passing Offense: Wis 111, Cin 53
September 18, 1999
Not to be a downer after that great weekend, but I finally had a chance to rewatch the Cincinnati game yesterday. Before I get to the gamegrades, a few general observations.
First, the team really played well in a number of aspects. True, they had some vital errors, but don't be fooled. They really dominated the game. Cincinnati had basically one drive plus one big play on offense, while Wisconsin rattled off 8 yard play after 8 yard play. Even given the turnovers and the penalties, I still can't figure out how the Badgers didn't score about 30 points.
Speaking of penalties, I went back and took a look at the officiating, examining each one frame by frame in an attempt to quench my own curiosity as to their validity. Some of you may have caught Alvarez's comments on Saturday when someone asked him about eliminating their penalties. To which Barry replied something to the effect of, "How do you try to teach your kids the correct way when they didn't do anything wrong in the first place?" Anyway, here they are one by one:
The first holding play (I belive on a solid Dayne run): Aside from the fact that it looked like the Bearcats were offsides, I couldn't find anything resembling a hold.
Block in back on the first punt: no camera angle so unsure.
Block in the back on Bennett on Davis' TD: a complete phantom call. The defender just fell down and the flag came. Horrible horrible call.
Interference against Myers: good call.
Hold on long Dayne run: It was called against either Sigmund or Tauscher on the weak side (couldn't see which but I think it was Sigmund). Either way, it was a marginal call at best. The block was away from the action and the Wisconsin kid had the defender locked up in what looked to be a solid block. When he couldn't release, he just fell down. This one could go either way, but was marginal IMO and should have been a no call.
Hold on the following Dayne run on 1st down late in the game: I couldn't find anything even close to a hold. The camera angle was bad though so maybe away from the play?
The various clock stoppages (or lack thereof) late in the game: Most looked ok. There was one on Sigmund that was debateable where his knee may have hit before his torso (which was out of bounds) but it was hard to see.
Granting Cincinnati the timeout: Maybe the whistle was caught in his throat, but the whistle was DEFINITELY after the snap. I don't know what the rules read exactly (whether the timeout comes when the whistle blows or when the ref acknowledges the request for a timeout), but it was very very close.
Finally, the Sigmund illegal motion on Evans' TD catch: Good call.
Now for the game grades:
QB: D
As for Kavanagh, he did throw the short routes pretty well, with only one bad throw (to go with 6 good ones). However, his medium and short balls were pretty lousy, with only 3 nice tosses (one dropped) as compared to 8 average to poor balls. Some of this was throwing into coverage (often to Davis) while some of it was just plain out lousy throwing.
The few times that Cincinnati got to him was when they freed up a blitzer who came unimpeded to the quarterback. Now, I may be wrong on this, but if a man is unaccounted for in the blitz pickup (it didn't look like anyone missed a block), isn't the QB supposed to read this and pick the hot receiver? Well Kavanagh was unable to on a few occasions (once late in the game on an important play).
Throw in a few more minor errors (falling down without being touched on a 3rd down play) to go with some major ones like throwing the ball while over the line of scrimmage or running the ball instead of throwing it away on the final series of plays, and you have completely overshawdowed the things he did do well (a couple of nice conversion tosses and no picks).
But, after watching the tape, there is one play that really screamed at me that hasn't gotten much play on the Badgerboard. On his ill-fated scramble, I belive it was Ahmad Merritt came free from the weak side and was complete uncovered dragging accross the middle, with a pretty clear path to the endzone...RIGHT IN FRONT OF KAVANAGH as he scrambled. I mean he was totally open. After Kavanagh was brought down, Merritt was visibly upset that he didn't get the ball. If you still have the tape, go check it out.
Kavanagh just made too many errors to be given a winning grade.
RB: A
Kuhns was solid and showed nice explosion on his long run.
Faulkner was ok once again, hitting some holes hard, but basically only gaining what might be expected from most backs given the blocking.
WR: C
Davis made a couple of good grabs with some contact and was obviously the go-to guy with Chambers out. However, his chance for a big play was eliminated when he dropped a perfectly thrown ball from Kavanagh which would have gone for big yards.
Merritt made a few third down catches for short yardage and could have had the play of the game if Kav would have seen him (as was mentioned before).
TE: D
OL: B
McIntosh was bulldozing folks while Rabach also had a solid game controlling the middle, especially when that big Gilbert Brown wannabe Monds left the game.
Costa was shaky on a few key plays but got by due to substandard competition.
The pass blocking was excellent other than the couple of times blitzers were allowed to run free. I assumed this was Kavanagh's bad read, though I suppose it could have been an OL call.
DL: C
Overall, there were really only 5 plays where the DL was outplayed, but boy did they hurt without too much support behind them as Cinci spread the field.
They were caught in a stunt and some arm tackles for the long TD run, were caught inside on the QB draw for a TD (stunt?), and were nowhere to be seen on the big option play down the sideline. Call it luck or poor execution, but they couldn't allow the Cats such big plays.
Favret played pretty well in general, getting solid penetration and forcing the action. He didn't always make the play which seems to be his bugaboo this year, but all in all played pretty well.
Bryant was pretty good inside with some pressures, though again, he needs to be more consistent.
Sam Mueller also played pretty well in my opinion.
LB: B
DB: A-
Other than Fletcher's terrific interception though, very few big plays.
The only thing that brought this score to a minus grade is the missed tackles/bad angles by Boese and Doering on the TD and Flether on the option play.
Special Teams: C
Bennett had the bogus call on the Davis runback and there were other penalties on kicks which backed them up into poor field position.
Davis had a fumble late in the game when he should have fair caught the ball.
Kick coverage was good.
Pisetsky had solid kickoffs and was perfect on his field goals (again!).
A few thoughts on today's game:
Sagarin now has Wisconsin at 19th in the country while Howell has them at 11th. The Badgers are 8th in the latest USA Today coaches poll.
Here is how the Badgers and Bearcats match up.
Total offense: WIS 33, CIN 35
Return to Game Previews/Evaluations Page
Early in the game, I thought Brooks was a little tentative, perhaps a little leery of his targets or perhaps simply playing overly cautious, causing him to miss a few receivers downfield. For the most part however though, I don't think he had a whole to to throw to and combined with Lamont's troubles, it was an awfully hard situation to suceed in.
Faulkner lacked the ability to explode through the hole and capitalize when the blocking was there for much of the game. However, like Bollinger, he must be commended for making plays down the stretch, including a big third down run in addition to the big run in overtime.
Conroy Whyte had troble catching the ball, and all the receivers for the most part had trouble gaining separation.
Non-existant in the passing game due to their participation in the pass blocking scheme, the tight ends primary function was as run blockers, a role that they did fairly well in that they didn't allow much perimeter penetration.
Brian Lamont's performance was worthy of all the post game scrutiny, so I will simply leave his performance as well....poor.
John Favret was all over the field, both in the passing game and in the run game, as was Eric Mahlik who played a brilliant game sans Wendell Bryant in the middle.
Overall, simply not enough plays. Cincinnati had a lot of success both throwing and running at times underneath, which is usually indicative of linebacker play.
Doering again held the unit together, despite some less than stellar play at other positions in the backfield.
Stemke did not exactly struggle for most of the game, yet did lack a little of the thunder. Still, he came up huge huge huge with a brilliant punt late in the game to set up the last TD drive.
While they did not consistently run the ball up the middle, they Badger OL was able to get open some key holes during cruch time. Given the lack of explosiveness in Faulkner also cannot be discounted, as I thought there were holes at times that were not exploited to their fullest.
Run Brooks Run, See Brooks Run. It is awfully hard to throw when your right tackle is being beaten like a red-headed step child. Compound that with a few drops, and the passing game would have to be viewed as morbid.
Cincinnati used the naked bootleg with great effectiveness, but they were content to allow Kenner to throw from the pocket. Given how effective he was from the pocket, this "key" really ceased to be an issue.
I wouldn't exactly say Wisconsin throttled Cincinnati on third down, but they didn't allow consistent movement either. IF anything, Cincinnati did much of their damage on 3rd down. So, I guess this "key" was a push.
Wisconsin did a pretty good job here despite only an average Stemke performance. Credit the defense for playing a strong second half in this regard.
Not surprisingly, I was correct about the ugly offensive performance. I was surprised that Cincinnati put as many points on the board as they did early, but the overall flow of the game did not. Also credit Cinci for not folding or making the crucial mistakes that the Badgers seemed to need to gain control of the game.
Presuming Wisconsin will play without Bennett, they are going to need to generate some consistent scoring drives and are not going to be able to rely on the home run. Last year, Monds had a big influence on the interior (before he left with injury) and Johnson, Ferrario, and Rabach are going to have to play well. Watch Monds early to get a gauge on what kind of running game Wisconsin is going to have.
No, without Chambers and Davis (again, a guess), we are not going to see many passes. But, when Brooks does fade back to pass, we simply need better production in addition to some big plays. The pass play calling has been conservative intentionally I believe in an effort to avoid having small targets across the middle, but we need to see more effective short outs as well as the TE or FB in the flat, especially on 3rd down.
Wisconsin has been very effective against Antwaan Randle-El of Indiana regarding collapsing his pocket and keeping him inside. Last year, they did not do this against Deonty Kenner of Cincinnati and Kenner was effective. Making him a pure pocket passer will limit what they can do offensively. This is another reason I think Bryant will sit today as Wisconsin will emphasize the rush from the edge with Favret, Kolodziej and Hebert with the tackles staying home to contain.
Cincinnati's offense is not all that great, but they can cause problems with their versatility. Keeping them in second and long will limit what they can do. Likewise, Wisconsin is going to be devoid of offensive (and possibly defensive) playmaker so they are going to need to be effective on first down to open up their playbook.
When the offense struggles (which I expect it to), Wisconsin must win the field position battle until presumably Cincinnati begins to crack.
As alluded to above, I think we are going to be in for an ugly Wisconsin offensive performance. I also have a feeling we might see a fair amount of Matt Unertl or Carlos Daniels in an attempt to find someone who is able to "get what they can". I expect a low scoring first half, say Wisconsin 7-3 at halftime as the defense plays solid assignment football. I don't see the big play explosion we saw last week, but rather a consistent pulling away after some Cincinnati mistakes. Final score, Wisconsin 20, Cincinnati 10.
Team Rushing Offense: Wis 12, Cin 38
Team Scoring Offense: Wis 63, Cin 98
Team Total Offense: Wis 80, Cin 48
Team Passing Defense: Wis 106, Cin 12
Team Rushing Defense: Wis 10, Cin 14
Team Scoring Defense: Wis 35, Cin 18
Team Total Defense: Wis 61, Cin 4
Oh where should I start. Let's start with Bollinger and get him out of the way. One horrible pass for a pick. Nuff said.
Absolutetly tremendous. One of the best games of Dayne's career in terms of actual performance. Broke tackles, was a weapon, and moved the pile all day, displaying great vision. Ron had the key fumble, but he simply carried the offensive load all day.
Pedestrian game for the wideouts. They caught most that was thrown their way, but did not make any big plays nor did they successfully get down the field.
Not a bad job blocking, but called for a couple of very very key penalties (even if all were not deserved). I won't say too much more as I'm sure Siggy feels bad enough for his gaffe.
Actually a very very good game if you take out the questionable holding calls (which you cannot do of course). Wisconsin controlled the line and basically hammered Cincinnati all day long, with dominating blocks on nearly 50% of the running snaps.
For most of the game, the DL controlled the line just as the OL did. However, there were enough key letdowns allowing big Cincinnati plays to downgrade them quite a bit.
The linebackers were taken out of the game somewhat with Cincinnati's style of offense, yet still accounted for themselves alright. They covered the short routes well and did some serious hitting after the catch.
Super coverage all day long. All Cincinnati had were short routes (which they executed pretty well). I had them down for 16 plays with terrific coverage vs. only one with bad coverage, a ratio that is going to win a lot of games for you.
Stemke was not his normal self. Not terrible but not great.
Passing offense: WIS 82, CIN 29
Rushing offense: WIS 11, CIN 42
Scoring offense: WIS 5, CIN 40
Total defense: WIS 8, CIN 30
Rushing defense: WIS 17, CIN 72
Passing defense: WIS 15, CIN 29
Scoring defense: WIS 21, CIN 35
Turnover margin: WIS 27, CIN 15