Wisco Wednesday: Week 2 Recap

A Tale of Two Halves. The good and the bad.

The Bad

The Entire 1st Half

14 – 10 at the end of the first half is unacceptable. The team started slow with no energy. Wisconsin had a grand total of 17 rushing yards. Dilin Jones dropped a pass that led to an INT that led to 7 points for Middle Tennessee. Fickell gave up with 1 minute left and went into the locker room with all three 1st half timeouts.

O-Line shuffle

The week 2 O-Line was shifted drastically compared to week 1. Week 1 starting Left Tackle Davis Heinzen was not good enough. Actually, he was terrible. He allowed 5 pressures and 2 sacks.

Here’s how they fixed it:
RT Riley Mahlman to LT
RG Emerson Mandell to RT
Freshman Colin Cubberly to RG

This wasn’t that bad. Riley and Emerson were serviceable, and Colin wasn’t great, but he’s a freshman. Better to have a weak right guard than a weak left tackle.

The real problem was at the center position. A game-time decision injury held out C Jake Renfro. He was replaced by Kerry Kodanko. Kodanko was garbage. He had 0 push in the run game and was a liability snapping the ball. He was the worst graded player on offense per PFF.

LG to C to RG was the weakest interior OL Wisconsin has seen in probably decades. That’s why the Badgers couldn’t run the ball between the tackles. Cubberly and Brunner need to improve, and Renfro needs to be back for the Bama game if Wisconsin wants to run the ball at all.

The Good

Danny O’Neil

Record setting performance.

Danny O’Neil set the record for most passing yards in a Badgers debut – 283 yards. He was 23/28 passing, a stellar 85% completion rate. His only INT was on a dropped pass, and he tossed 3 TDs. This team can win games with Danny.

Clean Football

For the first time since 2016 vs Iowa, Wisconsin played a game of football with ZERO penalties. Wow.

TE Lance Mason

Spring transfer Lance Mason had a breakout performance after being on a milk carton in week 1. He recorded 7 catches for 102 yards and a TD. The last time Wisconsin had a 100+ yard TE performance was Troy Fumagalli in 2017. Not bad company to have.

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This article was written by Cole Tollison and edited by Hayden Breene