After showing plenty of promise in the first-half of play, the Wisconsin Badgers let a potential win slip away too far out of reach.
The Badgers once held a 21-10 lead heading into the halftime break, with the offense looking like a whole different animal. Wisconsin was completing deep passes and beginning to stay true to the ‘air raid’ style of offense the staff is shooting for. Quarterback Braedyn Locke looked confident and delivered a deep touchdown to Vinny Anthony, something the Badgers have not seen much of in the past two seasons.
Wisconsin started to lose momentum as the second-half of play began, and never quite found it again on offense. The Badgers put up a goose egg in the second-half after scoring three touchdowns in the first-half of play. Locke began to really fall off and failed to connect with his receivers down field in the second-half of play.
The Wisconsin Badgers once seemed poised to defeat the Trojans with plenty of football left to play. However, the team could not hold on and made mistakes that are far too difficult to come back from.
Locke threw an interception that was quickly returned for a touchdown, which essentially ended the game for Wisconsin. The interception took the wind out of the sails on offense and was truly a kick when the team was already down. The Badgers could not recover from it, and unfortunately dropped the game to the Trojans due to it.
The game was plagued on offense with questionable play calling as well, in particular when the Badgers went for a 4th-and-1 play out of shotgun. There is no issue with the shotgun formation, but the Wisconsin Badgers staff choose to run out of shotgun rather than converting to the I formation.
What Went Wrong For the Wisconsin Badgers Against the USC Trojans?
While the Wisconsin Badgers once had momentum against the Trojans, once it was lost it really never came back on either side of the ball.
The defense spent far too long on the field after developing excellent momentum against the Trojans in the first-half of play. Great things cannot last forever and a defense cannot spend an entire game on the field, which came back to bit the Badgers. The struggles on offense have now slipped into the defense and are affecting all parts of the Wisconsin Badgers football team.
With the defense spending increased time on the field, the Trojans were able to grind down the Badgers and find ways to score. Wisconsin, on the other hand, could not keep the defense off the field and had to sacrifice for short drives and early punts far too often. The Badgers have far too many issues currently on both sides of the football, and need to find ways to improve themselves moving forward.
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