The first year in the Luke Fickell era has been a massive disappointment for the Wisconsin Badgers, not only for Fickell but for OC Phil Longo, who has coordinated high-octane offenses previously at Ole Miss and North Carolina.
But Longo hasn’t enjoyed as much success in his first year running the offense. Wisconsin is only averaging 22.2 points per game, which is in the bottom half of the country. Last season, Wisconsin averaged 25.3 points per game. So what’s been the reason for Wisconsin being anemic offensively?
Why Phil Longo hasn’t had as much success for the Wisconsin Badgers this season as he did in years past.
Luke Fickell’s first order of business when he took over as the team’s head coach was to find a coach who would completely remodel the team’s ground-and-pond offense. Enter Phil Longo, who ran an Air-Raid offense similar to the one Mike Leach ran at Kentucky and Oklahoma. The difference between the offenses was that Longo’s involved a running game to help set up the passing game, whereas Leach’s involved throwing the ball around 45-50 times a game.
While Longo is a bright offensive mind, his system doesn’t work in the Big Ten. Every defense (except Rutgers) is a gauntlet. Longo’s offense is predicated on a solid running game and rhythm throws. With Braelon Allen being in and out of the lineup, there’s no running game to speak with the season-ending injury to Chez Mellusi earlier this season.
The defense can now peel back and wait for Wisconsin to throw the football. The absence of the running game makes Wisconsin one-dimensional.
Even if Wisconsin had the personnel and a running game, every game this year. It’s been a struggle for the Wisconsin Badgers to put up points, and it doesn’t look like an Air Raid offense because there hasn’t been a deep-passing game to speak of this season.
The offensive players Wisconsin got in the transfer portal (Tanner Mordecai, Bryson Green, CJ Williams) haven’t been impressive this season. Mordecai missed time with an injury, but he wasn’t well before the injury. The only impressive offensive players this year have been Chimere Dike and Will Pauling.
It’s tough knowing where Wisconsin goes from here offensively, but one thing’s for certain. If Wisconsin doesn’t win one of their final two games, there could be changes to Luke Fickell’s staff this offseason.
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2 Comments
Ground-and-pond sounds like they’re stuck in a quagmire on offense.
DO NOT understand why they went back to Mordecai. Locke was better and can get reps to improve his future. Tanner is a dead end…