This Week in Badgers: MAYO BOWL
Season 2, Episode 13
Welcome to This Week in Badgers, the 7th most forwarded Newsletter in the Upper Peninsula last month. Today we’ll talk about The Groshek Game, Wake Forest, Coan, Doe and put a bow on Baywatch 2020.
They Beat Minnesota!
It feels like months ago but since the last Newsletter they played and beat Minnesota, that really happened! The main thing we’ll remember about this game, besides playing a game December with no crowds, are a couple of semi-maligned players in Jack Dunn and Garrett Groshek having their finest hours and willing the Badgers to victory.
I say that they’re maligned but that’s mostly a reflection of spending too much time on Twitter and Message Boards and seeing a ton of people that think they’re either blocking the next great WR/RB from seeing the field and/or some sort of indictment on school’s recruiting if they have to play (to be fair, both describe me at various points). And that criticism isn’t personal, I think we’ll all happy to have Wisconsin walk-ons able to help out when needed, they seem like nice people, etc etc.
All that said, its hard not to be excited that they were able to have career days when Wisconsin desperately needed someone to step up. Dunn carrying the WR group with 7-76-1 and Groshek going for 24-154-1 to win the Axe was not something I would have predicted at any point in my life. Kudos to those guys, genuinely feel happy for them.
Every team still playing has had their depth chart tested but you still had to step back and be somewhat in awe at the Badgers winning a B10 game while missing their top 2 QBs, top 2 RBs, top 2 WRs and 2 starting OL.
It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t need to be. They won. It was great.
They Play Wake Forest!
I’m sure I’ll regret thinking positive thoughts about this but here it goes: having Mertz, Berger, and (maybe) one or both of Davis/Pryor back (uh, nevermind) against a bad defense in non-frigid conditions is about the best possible way to end this season.
There’s a very good chance we find out the morning of the game that half the depth-chart is “unavailable” so I don’t want to get too excited but as far as end of season games go this is about as good as we could have hoped for after the Badgers performance in November and December.
Matt Belz at B5Q has a solid look of Wake Forest if you’re interested. I did a quick drive-by on their Advanced Stats profile and its going to be a battle of bad units in many areas — the Badger offense is a horrifying 84th in the country on Rushing Success Rate and 99th in Passing Success rate. Wake Forest Defense is 100th in rushing and 79th in passing. Who’s going to be less bad?
Few things to consider when watching on Wednesday:
Wake Forest is among the worst in the country in short-yardage defense and it’s the one thing Wisconsin is good at. Badgers don’t really “do” big plays and need to grind out 10+ play drives, so the Wake short yardage woes could be useful.
Wake Forest can pass the ball a little bit but are really bad at protecting the QB with a Sack and Pressure Rate are among the worst in college football. The Badgers front 7 could have fun on passing situations.
Wake Forest among the best in the country in Turnover Margin, the Badgers among the worst. Turnovers are hard to predict from game to game of course. Wake is +13 in wins and even in their 4 loses. Winning because of turnovers usually isn’t a thing you can count on, especially if pressure/sack rate isn’t great, which it isn’t for Wake, so I feel OK about this as a Badger fan.
Wake is an amazing golf school. Arnold Palmer, Curtis Strange, Lanny Wadkins, Webb Simpson, all of the Haas family, Billy Andrade, Will Zalatoris.
So yeah, that’s where we’re at. I don’t have a great feel for this one. Its cliche of course, but “starting fast” seems like it’d be important for this one. Mertz has been a trainwreck for most of the past 2 months so seeing a softer defense and making some good throws to get the confidence going would seem to be key.
Weather forecast: High of 45. You know what that means. SWEATSHIRT WEATHER.
Give me Bucky 24-19 in a weird one.
Jack Coan, Remembered
I thought this might play out a bit longer than it did but he is indeed in the transfer portal.
His 2019 season is already underrated and I feel like it will become more underrated through time. I like the AY/A stat for QBs and using that metric he had the 3rd best Badger QB season of all time (min 250 attempts). 3rd best QB rating and 5th best Yards/Attempt if you prefer that.
It’s weird to say that it makes total sense for the guy who put up the #3 season of all time to transfer, but it makes total sense for the guy who put up the #3 season of all time to transfer.
Coan has one year left and has spoken about wanting to make the NFL, so the only way it would make sense for him to come back to the Badgers would be an assurance that he’d be the starter next year, which even with Mertz’s struggles isn’t something Wisconsin could or should do.
The 2019 game at Minnesota is up there as one of my favorite Badger games of all time so I’ll always have found memories of Coan for that. 15-22, 280 and 2 TDs in a snow game that gave the Badgers the B1G West and essentially clinch the Rose Bowl is a good way to go out.
Last game for Ferguson?
That sounds like a guy who has made his decision.
Baywatch Update
The Baywatch TV show lasted 11 years, #BAYWATCH2020 lasted a couple weeks. Alas, we still have our memories. Adam Bay was not one of the 3 finalist for the award this year. Truly don’t know what else he could have done, but it is what it is. Bay is the underground Long Snapper that all the cool kids love, the other 3 Mannelly Finalists are corporate bands that you only hear about when Grammy Nominations are announced.
They say the Velvet Underground didn’t sell many records but everyone who bought one started their own band, I’d like to think that Adam Bay didn’t win any Mannelly awards but everyone who saw him wanted to become a long snapper.
Did Jaypo let us know he’ll have a story posted later?
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Yes.
Coming or going?
This season is crazy for a lot of different reasons but it being nearly January and having no idea who is going to be on the team next year is up there in weirdness.
Of course with the NCAA decision to make 2020 a “free” year eligibility wise, any of the 16 Seniors could come back next year and responses have ranged from “definitely coming back” (Wilder), “would love to come back, we’ll see” (Dunn) and lots of “still thinking about it” responses (pretty much everyone else).
This caught my eye over the weekend:
Of course many being undecided isn’t a surprise but I’m reading into the last line of “it’ll be a few weeks until the picture is fully clear” part of it.
This is just my speculating of course, but I think Wisconsin will want to be as close to the 85 scholarship number as possible in 2021. There’s going to be real budget concerns within the Athletic Department and while football will always be king, having all the other sports tighten their belts while the football team has 100 guys on scholarships, including a bunch of 6 year guys, doesn’t look good and doesn’t feel right either.
I don’t think the 85 is a hard cap of course, if Kendric Pryor wants to come back and he’s #86 they’ll of course do it, I just think the “few weeks until the picture is clear” means UW is going to want to wait and see what sort of roster attrition (can I throw out Boyd Dietzen as a Ray Ball Award nominee?) they have before players finalize their 2021 plans. They’ve seemed to have shut recruiting down after the early signing period and I think that plays a part in it as well.
Speaking of Budgets
The headline, Badgers football recruiting spending increasing, but still far behind competitors from the State Journal is specifically designed to drive me INSANE. I was ready to go with a huge rant about how these articles need to go away but then read the actual article and it wasn’t that bad.
Saeed Khalif has a bunch of good quotes in the article about what they spend money on (Multiple family members on visits, Edgewater Hotel, Mercedes Benz shuttles!) and where he’d like to spend more money on (recruiting spaces?).
I’ve really appreciated Khalif’s addition to the staff, obviously they’ve had success recruiting but he’s been great at talking to the media and gives interesting insight into how they handle recruiting. He’s basically the unicorn at UW when it comes to giving actual information to fans. I hope it continues.
Ebay Find of the Week
I’m an outspoken anti-Motion W guy, but have to admit this looks dope as hell. $99 is way more than I want to spend, but I’m keeping an eye on it.
Let’s Remember Some Guys
The Badgers don’t have much of a history with the state of North Carolina, as Wednesday will mark just their 2nd game in the state — the 2005 win at UNC being the other. Until recently they haven’t recruited much there either. Current players Madison Cone, Gio Paez and Devin Chandler make up 3 of the 4 players they’ve picked up from the state and of course the 4th is Kenzel Doe, who we’ll remember today.
Doe was one of the first recruits to commit to the 2011 class, flipping from Oregon State when the Badgers offered in 2010. The 2011 team had two established WRs in Toon and Abberderis and were really looking for someone to step up for the #3 spot. This lead to them burning his redshirt and giving him a couple looks early in the season, though he never did crack the rotation and was mostly an emergency WR/KR.
The Badgers spent the next 3 years trying to find a #2 WR opposite Abbrederis but Doe (and nobody else, really) was not able to be that guy, instead was a solid special teams player. He only had two return TDs in his career but they were both pretty memorable. The Kickoff return against South Carolina in the Cap One Bowl gave the Badgers life and the Punt Return TD was the difference in the 2012 Utah State game.
Doe fits in the Gilreath-Cruickshank-Bracey timeline of smaller WRs the Badgers went after that primarily shined on special teams, will be interesting to see if Bracey follows the same path or has a larger role on offense.
Kenzel Doe, remembered.
Ok, let’s cut it there. Little short one this week but wanted to get something out before the Mayo Bowl, and having a 2 year old home from daycare during Christmas break makes it very difficult to spend time on the computer looking up Kenzel Doe’s 2011 receiving stats. We’ll be back sometime after New Year’s with a Mayo Bowl debrief and news.
Thanks for spending your time here, as always feel free to reply to the email or @ me on Twitter with any comments, questions or concerns.
Go Badgers.