Near the end of the game with the big win 70-31 over Nebraska during the Big Ten Championship game I began to start thinking what I was going to say about the team in my next post. All I can say is this...
This is hard for me to say but.... I was wrong about Canada. When the chips were on the line, the offense came through. We rose to the occasion and overcame the loss earlier this season. We passed when we needed to, we ran... well... we ran all the time. The running game worked up the middle, to the left and to the right. If there would have been a fourth direction, I'm sure the offensive line would have blocked well in that direction.
Bielema did have the troops ready for this game, but if you think that I'm going to let him off the hook, you have another thing coming. I have been personally scarred by his bad decisions too many times in the past, there have been too many close games for me to recant my previous statements of firing Bielema. This win does help him move towards me not wanted him canned, but he is not there yet.
Canada might have pulled himself out of my dog house, but Bret, not yet. I need to see more from Bielema, I need to see more consistency, more big wins against big schools with decisions in the big spots.
The Rose Bowl will be interesting, with the long layover to the game, we will not surprise Stanford like we did to Nebraska tonight. We are going to run the ball and Stanford knows it. This game will most likely come down to the decision Bret makes in the week up to the game and during the game itself. The question is... Is he now up to it? Can he make the right call?
All we can do is wait and see. Congratulations to the 2012 Wisconsin Badgers on being Big Ten Championship and the Rose Bowl representative for a third year in a row.
On Wisconsin!
Showing posts with label Matt Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matt Canada. Show all posts
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Badgers Football: A team full of false confidence
After watching the Badgers blowout victory over Indiana 62-14 I could not help but observe a false sense of confidence amidst a record setting day for the Wisconsin rushing game. Now I'm glad that we did run the ball as well as we did and did not play down to our opponent as the Packers seem to do from time to time, but it seems the game came with some undesired effects. There was a sense of false confidence in the overall coaching and play calling that will burn us in the remaining games this season.
During the second quarter with Wisconsin winning 17-0, Indiana was able to slow down the Wisconsin attack and force a couple of punts while scoring a touchdown themselves. With Wisconsin on the ropes with a 3rd and 16 after a couple of bad play calls, we are just trying to run the ball to prevent any bad plays in the long yardage situation, but James White is able to break a couple of tackles, make a couple of good moves and score a 69 yard Touchdown.
We had no right in the situation to be getting first down much less the touchdown given the down and yardage, but Matt Canada looks like a genius since the play worked so well. For the previous 3 drives, Indiana had been crashing the line with blitzes to stop the running attack which resulted in 3 punts and was on pace for 4 punts in a row. I noticed this occurring on the second drive that resulted in a punt.
Time and time again this season this situation occurred and all Canada needed to do was call the play action fake on 1st or 2nd down to the "hopefully" wide open receiver 10-12 yards down the field, but continues to run into the brick wall. This would allow the running game to continue without eight men in the box. Most of the time we unable to break this eight men in the box defense resulting in the offense struggling the rest of the game since we wait until 3rd and long when it is a obvious passing situation. This is how we operated under Paul Chryst with great success, but under Bret, the motto is "If it aint broke, then break it".
On Saturday, we saw the except to the rule, White was able to score, Wisconsin was able to run the ball after that on the deflated Indiana team and win the game. If we would have punted the ball, who knows what could have happened.
Indiana is a program still trying to pull itself off the bottom of the Big Ten. Still trying to figure out how to win the big game. If this kind of victory would have occurred against Nebraska or Michigan State, I would have said the run game is here to stay, but the run game has only been as good (or should I say as bad) as our opponent.
This running attack will not translate to success in future games. Just like the two previous games to the Michigan State game, smart coaches will stop the run first which will leave Wisconsin unproductive on offense. Bielema and Canada will go into the Ohio State game thinking they will be able to win the game by pounding the ball on the ground, but all they will get is a brick wall and have no idea on how to break the eight man in the box defense.
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy that game today, I did enjoy watching Ball and White run all over the Indiana defense, and I'm happy that we will be playing in the Big Ten Championship game. My concern is how we take what we learned from this game along with what is on the tapes for Ohio State and formula a game plan. Under Alvarez, I knew a 62-14 win the previous week was not going to mess up the game planning the following week.
Badgers fans, enjoy the win this week, but don't expect Urban Meyer to allow the Badgers to just run all over the defense without making some kind of adjustment.
During the second quarter with Wisconsin winning 17-0, Indiana was able to slow down the Wisconsin attack and force a couple of punts while scoring a touchdown themselves. With Wisconsin on the ropes with a 3rd and 16 after a couple of bad play calls, we are just trying to run the ball to prevent any bad plays in the long yardage situation, but James White is able to break a couple of tackles, make a couple of good moves and score a 69 yard Touchdown.
We had no right in the situation to be getting first down much less the touchdown given the down and yardage, but Matt Canada looks like a genius since the play worked so well. For the previous 3 drives, Indiana had been crashing the line with blitzes to stop the running attack which resulted in 3 punts and was on pace for 4 punts in a row. I noticed this occurring on the second drive that resulted in a punt.
Time and time again this season this situation occurred and all Canada needed to do was call the play action fake on 1st or 2nd down to the "hopefully" wide open receiver 10-12 yards down the field, but continues to run into the brick wall. This would allow the running game to continue without eight men in the box. Most of the time we unable to break this eight men in the box defense resulting in the offense struggling the rest of the game since we wait until 3rd and long when it is a obvious passing situation. This is how we operated under Paul Chryst with great success, but under Bret, the motto is "If it aint broke, then break it".
On Saturday, we saw the except to the rule, White was able to score, Wisconsin was able to run the ball after that on the deflated Indiana team and win the game. If we would have punted the ball, who knows what could have happened.
Indiana is a program still trying to pull itself off the bottom of the Big Ten. Still trying to figure out how to win the big game. If this kind of victory would have occurred against Nebraska or Michigan State, I would have said the run game is here to stay, but the run game has only been as good (or should I say as bad) as our opponent.
This running attack will not translate to success in future games. Just like the two previous games to the Michigan State game, smart coaches will stop the run first which will leave Wisconsin unproductive on offense. Bielema and Canada will go into the Ohio State game thinking they will be able to win the game by pounding the ball on the ground, but all they will get is a brick wall and have no idea on how to break the eight man in the box defense.
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy that game today, I did enjoy watching Ball and White run all over the Indiana defense, and I'm happy that we will be playing in the Big Ten Championship game. My concern is how we take what we learned from this game along with what is on the tapes for Ohio State and formula a game plan. Under Alvarez, I knew a 62-14 win the previous week was not going to mess up the game planning the following week.
Badgers fans, enjoy the win this week, but don't expect Urban Meyer to allow the Badgers to just run all over the defense without making some kind of adjustment.
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