WISCONSIN PREVIEW: Chaos vs. Order
Embroiled, explosive Huskers face their division's model of toughness and consistency
INFO AND STATISTICS:
COACH: Paul Chryst, seventh season (63-22 at Wisconsin, 82-41 overall)
2021 RECORD: 7-3 (5-2 Big Ten, T-1st Big Ten West)
POLL RANKING: 19th AP, 20th Coaches
SP+/FPI/F+ OVERALL RATING: 4th SP+/9th FPI/5th F+ (Nebraska: 25th SP+/28th FPI/24th F+)
VEGAS SPREAD (as of Wednesday, November 17): Wisconsin -9.5, 42.5 Over/Under
SP+ NEBRASKA WIN PROBABILITY: 25%
SP+ SCORE PREDICTION: Wisconsin 29, Nebraska 18
Rumors of Wisconsin’s demise were greatly exaggerated. After getting some tough breaks/throwing 4,000 interceptions in three early season losses against good teams, people were ready to declare the Badgers washed up and bad and out of the division race. But the numbers have essentially said Wisconsin has never not been a top 10 team nationally this season, and its recent rampage has backed that up. Make no mistake: This will be one of the four best teams NU has played this year, on-par with Michigan and OU and better than Michigan State.
Chryst is a Wisconsin lifer — born in Madison, played for the Badgers, has been on the UW staff in some capacity for 14 years — and has taken what was a steady development program into full supernova mode. It kinda seems as if he’s pressing up against the ceiling of what Wisconsin can be — winning the West consistently and playing like a top 15 team but not having the high end talent to hang with the big dawgs of the sport — but that’s still a pretty damn good place to be. He has an almost entirely pro-style and West Coast offense background — including two years as Mike Riley’s offensive coordinator at Oregon State — and has a strong hand in the Badgers’ offense while largely leaving the defense to the purview of his excellent coordinators.
PERSONNEL:
BEST PLAYERS:
Leo Chenal, Inside Linebacker, #5: The junior is one of the best run defenders in the country at any position. He’s missed just six total tackles in 77 attempts so far this season, and he can absolutely fly, even at 260 pounds. He has a tendency to be overaggressive on the run, which has led to teams picking on him in the passing game; he’s given up a reception on 87.5% percent of his targets. In the four games heading into last week’s contest against Northwestern, he had 42 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss and five sacks.
Jack Sanborn, Inside Linebacker, #57: Sanborn, a senior, is another very good run defender by the numbers, but he lacks the size/athleticism combo of Chenal. He is, however, elite in pass coverage for an off-ball linebacker. On passing downs, the Badgers will move Sanborn, Chenal and outside linebacker Nick Herbig (who also is excellent and actually leads the team in sacks) around in amoeba looks to confuse offenses.
Joe Tippmann, Center, #75: The four-star recruit redshirted and then got reserve playing time last year but has blossomed into one of the best run-blockers in the conference as a sophomore. The whole Badger line is pretty good (as always) but Tippmann has been the best this season.
Jake Ferguson, Tight End, #84: Ferguson, a major recruit from right in Madison, is the Badgers’ top pass-catching option. The senior has been an improved vertical threat this year by necessity with UW’s receivers being ineffective, and Ferguson is catching a higher percentage of his passes up the seam than any previous season. (I think it’s very fitting the four best players for Wisconsin are two run-stuffing linebackers, a center and a tight end).
COOLEST NAME ON THE ROSTER:
Danny Vanden Boom, Quarterback, #15
The senior has only seen action in four games in his Wisconsin career but has been Academic All-Big Ten three times and a Big Ten Distinguished Scholar twice as a personal finance major! This guy is probably gonna be running the U.S. Treasury in a few years. His name also sounds like a Fantastic Four villain or something.
WHEN UW’S OFFENSE IS ON THE FIELD:
STATISTICS:
UNIT SP+/FPI/F+ RATINGS:
UW OFFENSE: 49th SP+/76th FPI/59th F+
NU DEFENSE: 17th SP+/15th FPI/12th F+
YARDS PER PLAY (national rank in parentheses):
UW OFFENSE: 5.57 yards per play (79th)
NU DEFENSE: 5.08 yards allowed per play (31st)
POINTS PER DRIVE (national rank in parentheses):
UW OFFENSE: 1.99 points per drive (78th)
NU DEFENSE: 1.73 points allowed per drive (26th)
RUSHING:
UW OFFENSE: 227.1 rushing yards per game (1st in Big Ten, 11th nationally)
NU DEFENSE: 132.5 rushing yards allowed per game (7th in Big Ten, 39th nationally)
PASSING:
UW OFFENSE: 162.9 passing yards per game (12th in Big Ten, 117th nationally)
NU DEFENSE: 230.6 passing yards allowed per game (9th in Big Ten, 65th nationally)
20+ YARD GAINS PER GAME:
UW OFFENSE: 3.4 20+ yard gains per game (1.6 rush, 1.8 pass)
NU DEFENSE: 3.5 20+ yard gains allowed per game (1.2 rush, 2.3 pass)
HAVOC PLAYS PER GAME (tackles for loss, sacks, passes defensed, interceptions, fumbles forced):
UW OFFENSE: 10.5 Havoc plays allowed per game
NU DEFENSE: 11.6 Havoc plays per game
COORDINATOR:
Joe Rudolph, Seventh Season
Rudolph is not actually the offensive coordinator — he’s the “associate head coach” and “running game coordinator” and is in charge of the offensive line — and he lost playcalling duties from Chryst before this season after having them for 2020. But I’m listing him here because Rudolph is heavily involved in the design and gameplanning of the offense and works in tandem with Chryst. Rudolph was the tight ends coach for NU back in 2007 in Bill Callahan’s final season, but has been with Chryst ever since, following him from Wisconsin to Pittsburgh and back to Wisconsin.
SCHEME
Primary Formations: Singleback, I-formation, condensed receivers and bunches
Primary Personnel: 12 personnel, 22 personnel, 11 personnel
Tempo: Never, kill as much clock as possible
Motion: Frequently, and big presnap shifts
Primary Run Concepts: Power, counter, inside and outside zone
Primary Pass Concepts: Quick-hitters out of bunch; heavy load-up play action deep shots and in-breakers
Everyone knows what Wisconsin is going to do here. The question is: Can you stop it?
Wisconsin has incredibly diverse and well-repped run game. They do favor gap-scheme runs at a slightly higher rate than they do zone runs but still expect to see plenty of inside zone and mid-zone from the Badgers.
They seem to have recently found the Next Great Wisconsin Running Back (TM) in true freshman Braelon Allen. An in-state product, Allen was actually recruited to UW as a safety/linebacker but has instead become a 6-foot-2, 240-pound SR-71 Blackbird of a runner with an upright style that has me calling him BABY DERRICK HENRY. Since becoming the starter, he has run for 108, 140, 104, 129 and 173 yards in his last five games. He’s only 17 years old (something you’ll hear a lot on the broadcast) and already looks like he could beat up The Rock. I am very scared.
Allen is solid on zone runs with good vision, but he’s not particularly adept at moving laterally. He really does his damage when gets those UW linemen pulling in front of him in gap-scheme concepts; those concepts’ defined hit points give him the runway he needs to build up enough speed to go into his RUNAWAY SEMI TRUCK MODE. These two runs on the same pin-and-pull concept made my jaw drop:
In the 3-step passing game, in following with Chryst’s background, Wisconsin favors quick, clockwork timed-up West Coast concepts like double slants, angle routes and short curls/stops. They especially like creating rubs or misdirection/confusion by heavily using both bunch formations and condensed WR splits (something that also helps in the running game). They also will run plenty of play action off their run concepts where they load up in protection, both to take deep shots off post and go routes and hit intermediate zone holes with deep in-breaking routes.
This Wisconsin offense is more glitchy than previous incarnations. Quarterback Graham Mertz couldn’t stop throwing interceptions for a while there, and the Badgers are more prone to negative running plays than usual. Nebraska is good at forcing Havoc and will need to.
HOW NEBRASKA CAN DEFEND IT:
Aside from maybe Minnesota, this might be the trickiest matchup the Huskers’ defense has had all season. Nebraska’s defensive scheme is designed to limit big passing plays and is banking on opponents not being satisfied with getting four-yard gain after six-yard gain on light boxes and off pass coverage. Wisconsin (a) almost never throws deep or puts the ball in harms way, and (b) is more than fine with sitting on you until you slowly run out of air.
One adjustment I expect NU to make is to play more traditional 3-4 defense instead of the 2-5 nickel look it’s predominantly used this season; this was something they did against two similarly minded teams in Michigan and Minnesota (their 40.5% and 47.62% use of base defense, respectively, in those games are both season highs). I also expect a higher blitz percentage than NU’s normally pretty conservative figure (to help with the run game) and expect lots of Cover 3 and Cover 1 to get an extra defender in the box.
WHEN WISCONSIN’S DEFENSE IS ON THE FIELD:
STATISTICS:
UNIT SP+/F+ RATING:
UW DEFENSE: 2nd SP+/2nd FPI/ 2nd F+
NU OFFENSE: 36th SP+/52nd FPI/35th F+
YARDS PER PLAY (national rank in parentheses):
UW DEFENSE: 3.72 yards allowed per play (1st)
NU OFFENSE: 6.57 yards per play (20th)
POINTS PER DRIVE (national rank in parentheses):
UW DEFENSE: 1.12 points allowed per drive allowed (3rd)
NU OFFENSE: 2.12 points per drive (70th)
RUSHING:
UW DEFENSE: 55.70 rushing yards allowed per game (1st in Big Ten, 1st nationally)
NU OFFENSE: 194.4 rushing yards per game (6th in Big Ten, 36th nationally)
PASSING:
UW DEFENSE: 155.7 passing yards allowed per game (1st in Big Ten, 2nd nationally)
NU OFFENSE: 264.8 passing yards per game (5th in Big Ten, 34th nationally)
HAVOC PLAYS PER GAME (cumulative tackles for loss, sacks, passes defensed, interceptions, fumbles forced):
UW DEFENSE: 14.0 Havoc plays per game
NU OFFENSE: 7.3 Havoc plays allowed per game
20+ YARD GAINS PER GAME:
UW DEFENSE: 2.4 20+ yard gains allowed (0.5 rush, 1.9 pass) per game
NU OFFENSE: 6.4 20+ yard gains (1.7 rush, 4.7 pass) per game
COORDINATOR:
Jim Leonhard, Fifth Season
Leonhard, a GRITTY former Badger and NFL safety, took over the UW defense after Justin Wilcox and Dave Aranda built a strong defensive culture at UW and parlayed it into the head coaching job at Cal and the defensive coordinator job at LSU, respectively. Leonhard has kept that going while turning down overtures from bigger programs and even the Packers this last offseason. Leonhard has kept the scheme mostly the same while adding a few modern tweaks. He seems less defined by style than by putting personnel in their best situation.
SCHEME:
Standard Down Base Defense: 5-2 Bear front, single-high safety
Primary Coverages: Cover 1
Blitz Frequency: Insanely heavy
Third Down: Alignment tweaks to confuse but run the bread-and-butter
The Badgers’ defensive scheme this year against spread teams has been to line up heavy across the line of scrimmage and occupy gaps, allowing Sanborn and Chenal to knife in and make plays in the run game or pressure quarterbacks. They’ve been good at it and are averaging 7.4 tackles for loss a game. Playing a Bear front lets UW put a defender head up on every offensive linemen, something that’s extremely tough to run against. Most teams don’t do this because it leaves you exposed in coverage in the back end. Wisconsin solution to that it to blitz more than almost anyone in the country and basically only play tight man coverage — it was seventh nationally in Cover 1 percentage and no higher than 80th in any other coverage — and hope that its pressure can get there before your receivers get off the jams.
(ASIDE: I am sorry about the quality of this screenshot; all of the Wisconsin games on YouTube look like they were uploaded from a VHS tape).
The Badgers basically play like this all the time; there isn’t a ton of designery stuff in the games that I watched. On third down, they will take defensive linemen off the field to get more LBs or DBs out there, but they’re still basically running the same concepts. In the look below, they take out their nose tackle to bring an extra safety on the field, but this is still a five-man front with press Cover 1 behind it.
The mantra here is sort of “run simple stuff but just whip our opponents so bad that they can’t do anything against it.’”
HOW NEBRASKA CAN ATTACK IT:
I would be very surprised if NU had much success with traditional run game Saturday. No one has at any point against Wisconsin this season, and this front/defensive style is specifically designed to stop offensive systems like Nebraska’s. I also wouldn’t expect much triple option in this game, either — with every gap accounted for in this front and the quality of UW’s linebackers, it seems like those plays are just begging to get strung out for a negative-1 yard gain.
In the passing game, look for the Huskers’ favorite man-beating concepts to be pretty prevalent — mesh, double slants/stick, the clearout/drags with the bigger receivers. The play-action deep crossers stuff NU has been running to success lately will work really well against Cover 1 and might generate some big plays, if they can protect it — and I mean that with the biggest IF possible for that sentence.
SCORE PREDICTION:
Wisconsin 21, Nebraska 10
Wisconsin’s offense is excellent at doing something NU’s defensive structure struggles with, and the Badgers’ defense is stingiest in the areas where Nebraska’s offense is strongest. The Huskers may be fresh coming off their bye and be juiced up to play for their coach after the controversy of the last few weeks, but this is a bad matchup against a very good team.