So you may have heard bad things about Wisconsin's offense. Through three games, Wisconsin is averaging a measly 19 points per game. The Badgers are also 1-2 on the season and reeling as we head into this weekend's marquee matchup with the Wolverines. What's going on, you may ask? The answer to that question is what your author set out to uncover with this post. Is it just the quarterback? Or is it an uncharacteristically bad offensive line? Or maybe the lack of another successor to the Ron Dayne/Montee Ball/Jonathan Taylor succession of superstar RB's that the coaches in Madison sculpt out of sausage and cheese? Well, gang, let's find out: 

 

The Film: Before we get started, I have a confession: I am somewhat selfish. And in choosing the film for this post, I put my own convenience high on the totem pole for reasons behind picking a particular game. There's an absence of discernible differences between the way that PSU and Notre Dame play (and in terms of team quality), so in order to pick one over the other, I tabbed Penn State so that I can re-use that same film for Michigan's battle against the Lions later in the season (Wisconsin is a good analogue for Michigan when it comes to breaking down PSU). So, that's what we're rolling with, the 16-10 Penn State victory in Madison back in Week 1. And it was quite the interesting game, as you will see. 

Personnel: The chart. 

Wisconsin is starting the embattled Graham Mertz at QB, who gets a huge portion of this post dedicated to him. Clemson transfer Chez Mellusi is the starting RB for Wisconsin, getting the majority of the carries in this game. Last year's starter Jalen Berger, who I was pegging as a breakout player pre-season, has gone MIA in games of consequence. He didn't touch the field in the game I watched, and got a lone carry against ND last weekend. In between he got 15 carries against EMU in week two. Isaac Guerrendo seems to be the backup RB in the games that matter. Wisconsin still uses a FB, because of course, and John Chenal is their starter at that position, being used mostly as a blocker, but also for the trusty FB dive in their short-yardage situations. 

At TE they lean heavily on Jake Ferguson, who is Mertz's safety valve option, not breaking many long catches but being targeted often. Jack Eschenbach is used heavily in two TE sets, but is not targeted much as a receiving threat. Clay Cundiff is another TE option who has a pair of chunk catches this season and sees the field a decent bit. 

The WR's are not lacking in options but are lacking in a standout threat. Danny Davis III, who has been a viable option for the Badgers since what feels like 1975, leads the team in catches. Kendric Pryor is in a similar boat, third on the team in catches and presumably with a long gray beard to indicate his age. Pryor is also used as a jet sweep threat in the running game. The catches drop off substantially after that, but Chimere Dike, whose name is not pronounced the way it looks like, sees the field often. He just hasn't caught many passes. Jack Dunn has played quite a bit but is yet to collect a catch. AJ Abbott has a lone catch so I guess I'll throw his name out there, but it's really Davis, Pryor, Dike, and Dunn to talk about. 

On the offensive line, they have a set five man unit of Tyler Beach at LT, Josh Seltzner at LG, Joe Tippmann at C, Jack Nelson at RG, and Logan Bruss at RT. They bring interior linemen Kaden Lyles (last year's starter at C), Cormac Sampson and Michael Furtney on in the beef packages, and former blue chip OT Logan Brown has played some on the outside as well. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: What's up with Wisconsin's offense?]

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Spread, pro-style, or hybrid: You know the answer to this. Wisconsin is still the same pro-style team they've always been, save for that one season they had Russell Wilson, when they inched ever so slightly towards hybrid. Wisconsin is the antithesis of the spread and I have the charts to back it up: 

Down	Run	Pass
1st	29	11
2nd	13	15
3rd	11	11
4th	2	1

So let's get the obvious out of the way: Wisconsin ran a ton of plays. I have 93 charted here and officially they ran 96 for the game (the game tape I was using cut off a few plays here and there), which is far above the average for a typical game. Wisconsin held the ball for nearly 43 minutes (!!) and yet lost this one. We will get into why later, but the play distribution above gives you a small hint into some of the problems ailing Wisconsin's offense.

Notably, their playcalling is about as predictable as it is that the sun will rise tomorrow. On first down, they run the football. Those numbers are skewed a tad by the pair of ill-fated two-minute drills they ran. Before that, it was 27 runs to 6 passes on first down (!!!!). And of those six passes, five were using play-action. That's all there is to the offense on first down. Then, on second down, they tend to pass more than they run it, but if it's a short distance, they'll jam it up the middle again. And on third down, it's all about the distance. If it's short yardage, you can bet your life savings that it will be a run. If it's less than a yard, it'll likely be a QB sneak. And if it's longer yardage, it will probably be a pass. But that first down distribution tells you all you need to know about what Wisconsin is trying to do.  

Formation	Run	PA	Pass	Total
Shotgun	10	-	26	39%
Under Center	45	7	5	61%

Here's your other problem: the formation was absolutely stale. If Mertz is under center, you know what's coming nearly 80% of the time (and the other 20% is not an effective enough offensive play to keep you honest). If he's in the shotgun, it's probably a pass. The play distribution is not unlike Washington's in terms of being remarkably predictable, and that's not a good offensive comparison to be making given everything we now know about Washington and its offense.

This is an offense that wants to run the football, that prefers to put the QB under center, and plays with a fullback. That's as far from the spread as you will see in modern day college football. 

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? You also know the answer to this. Manball. Look at the above charts. That's Manball. Here are some formations to become familiar with: 

BEEF. You have the FB Chenal lined up in the backfield on the right side and another TE in the backfield on the left side. The main TE Ferguson is on the LoS on the right side, and a third TE is on the far side. Then you have an OL that consists of mostly hulking interior linemen to bully the ball across the first down marker. In this formation, they typically QB sneak it. 

If they don't go all-out BEEF in short yardage, they trot out the trusty I-Formation: 

The normal Wisconsin set, though, looks more like this: 

Here you have two TE, Eschenbach on the left side and Ferguson on the right side, with two WR's and a RB. Sometimes they go with 1 TE + 3 WR and sometimes 3 TE + 1 WR, but this is the most common look they give you. It's Manball. 

Hurry it up or grind it out: As typically follows a manball team, this is a grind it out team. They want to run it and are happy to take the 30-40 seconds off the clock associated with each run. Just look at what I said earlier about time of possession in this one and you can see what I mean. They're content to huddle up and move at their own methodical pace. Not molasses slow, but intentionally taking their time to grind the game out. 

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Something in the 2-3 range? Mertz is not much of a threat to run, and that's because there is no designed QB run in this system. He's not terribly slow or anything, but when your amount of carries is already totally restricted to sneaks and scrambles, and they only ask him to throw it so much anyway, it's not going to be much of a factor. He scrambled once in the game that I watched and ended up getting popped on his way to the sideline in a big hit that was flagged for targeting. Probably why there's no QB run to this offense. 

Dangerman: It's Wisconsin, so we have to go with an OL and I'll highlight LG Josh Seltzner. Last season he wasn't starred on our FFFF chart, but his time in the spotlight has come. Wisconsin leans heavily on the left side of their offensive line to run the ball, which is the crux of their offense, and Seltzner is a very good run blocker who, unlike his fellow left-side mate Tyler Beach, isn't a disaster pass blocker. He was my best-graded OL in this game, and PFF has him right there with C Joe Tippmann as the best on the team. Here's Seltzner getting out into space to hammer PSU LB Brandon Smith and help solidify a big hole for Mellusi: 

#70 LG

He gets out into space again to set a block on their lone TD, and thanks to Seltzner and the FB Chenal, Mellusi is untouched until well into the end zone: 

As you can see, Seltzner gets to move around a lot, being pulled by Wisconsin to utilize his athleticism, but he can also blow a guy up between the tackles too, especially if he and Beach work together:  

#70 LG and #65 LT

Seltzner is a good one, and on a team with a TE who's not allowed to run more than five yards past the line of scrimmage, a crumbling QB, and otherwise ordinary skill position guys, I had to go with an OL, and Seltzner impressed me the most. 

HenneChart: Well, here we go: 

Wisc vs. PSU	Good				Neutral			Bad					Ovr
Quarterback	DO	CA	SCR		PR	MA		BA	TA	IN	BR		DSR	PFF
Graham Mertz	1	11	1		2	7		1	2	6	5		48%	-

(Two screens omitted after a clarification to the grading scheme) 

Yeah. Mertz was bad. We don't need to discuss further right now because he gets his own section below, but here's what you need to know: Joe Milton's DSR was 47% against Wisconsin last year. Mertz's was 48% in this game. 

 

Overview

So what's going on with Wisconsin's offense? We know it's the usual slog from a schematic standpoint, but why is it bad now? There are a couple factors going on, a lack of "The Guy" in the backfield, real struggles along the offensive line to open holes  and keep the QB upright against good competition, and then the Mertz factor.

Let's begin with discussing Mertz since that horrifying chart is still fresh in your mind. What's up with Mertz? He was supposed to be the savior of Wisconsin football but has since become the anchor weighing the team down. This game was simply brutal to watch and I'll highlight a couple issues with Mertz. Most notably, his tendency to lock in on a receiver (the five "bad reads" in the above chart), which cost the Badgers a red zone possession early in the game: 

Here, Mertz locks onto his guy and forces it into double coverage when he has another option open. Look at this: 

The yellow circle is the football, intended for a Wisconsin receiver who is boxed in by double coverage. The blue circle shows the wide open receiver Mertz missed. Here's another one: 

I will acknowledge that this is a late game 4th & Goal, so Mertz had to throw it somewhere, but you can tell that he decided pre-snap he's going to Ferguson and has no idea that the safety is underneath to easily step in front of the pass and snag it. 

Here he is again trying to force it to Ferguson and he's extremely lucky it wasn't intercepted. Notice #7 Jack Dunn running screamingly wide open on a mesh route that Mertz is completely oblivious to. In this game Mertz routinely locked onto receivers and tried to force it in, while also missing more open receivers that were often easier passes to make. It was grim stuff and does not make Paul Chryst and his coaching staff look good. This is a game where Mertz threw a pair of INT's and should've legitimately thrown two more that were dropped by defenders. 

The other legit INT came on one of his inaccurate passes: 

Again, he's gotta throw the ball down the field on a third and long nearing the end, but preferably not way over your receiver's head. 

The accuracy problem is real for Mertz, which you can notice by the seven passes I described as "marginal". The receivers could catch them but often times it hobbled their ability to do anything with them, which disrupts the offense. This could be 10+ YAC if the ball isn't way out in front of Dike: 

Here he has Ferguson running and potentially could turn the corner, but the throw is behind him and low, forcing the TE to come to a total stop to catch it: 

This problem popped up over and over again. And the farther downfield Mertz targets, the less and less likely the ball is to even be close. They attempted one true deep shot in this game and...

Ok, there was a rusher approaching, but no contact before the throw, and Dike is open in the zone down the field. And Mertz puts it way out of bounds. 

Overall, this is a QB who struggles to do anything if his first read isn't open, and often tries to force it into his first read, which is partially why he has thrown 6 INT in three games this season. When Mertz tries to throw, the ball is rarely crisp, forcing receivers to stop and adjust, and sometimes it's just plain inaccurate. And the combination of the bad reads and inaccuracy are the 1-2 punch leading to those INT's.

In total you have a QB who handicaps the offense in immense ways through the air. Wisconsin has been limited in passing often in the past decade, be it Alex Hornibrook or Jack Coan, but the best Wisconsin QB's are those who can occasionally make the dagger throws. Hornibrook got Wisconsin to 12-0 in 2017 because every so often he could make these kinds of throws: 

Mertz hasn't shown anything on tape to suggest he can do that this season. In fact, he's worse than Hornibrook and Coan right now because game managers have to occasionally make the big throw and then mostly they take care of the football. That's not Mertz at the moment that's the big difference between Cade McNamara and Graham Mertz. Neither Michigan nor Wisconisn wants to pass on offense right now, but Michigan's QB has still yet to turn it over this season, while Wisconsin's QB has morphed into an INT machine. Wisconsin has to get better play out of Mertz if they want to do anything close to their usual expectation this season. 

Mertz's issues, when mixed with the usual slate of "ehhhh" receivers, leave the passing game totally impotent. They can't throw it down the field, and so every passing play is either a small hitch, a slant, or an out route. Nothing beyond 10 yards past the line of scrimmage, which only serves to make the already stale playcalling more predictable. It's difficult to make the offense tricky and exciting when your receivers are just guys and your QB needs to be wearing a straitjacket. Just ask 2017 Michigan.  

If there's one small reason why Mertz may be playing the way he is though, it could be due to some real issues in pass protection along the Wisconsin OL. LT Tyler Beach in particular is a fascinating character, which you can see in the Seth diagram at the top of the post, where Beach's icon is half cyan and half star. Beach is a very good run blocker, who, along with the dangerman Seltzner, make up the meat that powers Wisconsin's running game. The Badgers live and die running it behind that left side of the line, powered in part by Beach. Unfortunately, Graham Mertz may die as a result of Beach's pass protecting. 

You would not be incorrect in conjuring the Juwann Bushell-Beatty comparisons for Beach in terms of a good run blocker who is a liability as a pass protecting tackle. When Beach cracks, it's normally an outright whiff, which is the problem: 

LT #65

Those are the kind of hits that can Brandon Peters your QB and leave him scarred for life. Probably not the only reason Mertz is so bad, or even a big one, but I have to think it's a factor. One more really bad Beach situation, also made worse by RT Logan Bruss getting beaten badly: 

LT #65 and RT #60

That's a three man rush for PSU that ends with one DL landing at the QB's feet and another ripping the QB down and forcing an intentional grounding. That sort of thing doesn't normally happen with Wisconsin OL. To further illustrate the point on Beach, he has one of the most wild PFF profiles that I've ever seen: a 71.0 run blocking grade (good) and a 19.1 (atrocity) pass blocking grade. Bruss has graded out much better in both phases from that site but I wasn't terribly impressed with him in this game, either. 

The interior of the OL is much better and when it comes to run blocking as a five-man unit, it's still a solid OL. Against Michigan's defensive weakspot, it could be still cause problems, but there is not the evidence in box scores yet to suggest it's an edge so massive it could end the game before it starts like in 2019 and 2020. for example: 3.2 YPC against PSU and 2.8 YPC against Notre Dame for Wisconsin's rushing game. 6.4 YPC against EMU in between, so it's in there, but it has struggled to come out in their two games against good competition. 

The good clips were present in the Seltzner section, and I'll throw one more in here: 

It's still Wisconsin. They can still do this to you. It just wasn't consistent against PSU (or Notre Dame). The problem with the running game,tended to revolve around Wisconsin's inability to threaten through the air, allowing PSU to stack the box and stuff runs easily like this: 

That's eight white jerseys in the box and this sort of thing was happening quite a bit. No real breathing room available, and this iteration of the Wisconsin OL wasn't good enough to bully a higher end opponent in a crowded box. Will they be good enough to bully Michigan if the Wolverines stack the box? Can't say, because this is as much a measuring stick game for Wisconsin's OL as it is for Michigan's DL, but there were problems evident on the tape against PSU. 

The last point to make is that Chez Mellusi and Isaac Guerrendo are mostly just guys. They can break tackles here and there but I have not seen a Jonathan Taylor quality to either of them. Mellusi has acceleration that once made him a Clemson recruit but there was little space in this game for him to flash it. The best example is probably in the first Seltzner clip in the Dangerman section, which was also one of Wisconsin's longest runs of the day. Guerrendo is decent at breaking tackles but that was about all I noted from him: 

The receivers are similar. They aren't savants at getting open, they're probably not going to beat you over the top, and also their QB isn't competent enough to let them try. Jake Ferguson is the most notable receiving target but he is tethered to the LoS because of Mertz's limitations. His best moment in the game was this situation: 

The above clip is really a good encapsulation of the issues facing Wisconsin's passing attack: shoddy pass protection scares Mertz, he rushes a throw and doesn't put it on target, limiting what the receiver can do. Ferguson is happy just to make this grab at all. Ferguson could be a lot more with a more functional QB, but instead he's Mertz's safety valve, a receiver with a big enough catch radius to haul in most of the wildly inconsistent passes that leave his QB's hand. 

 

What does this mean for Michigan? 

Well, they need to learn some lessons from Rutgers. Seth will shed more light on this in UFR, but the soft coverage they played against Noah Vedral is the opposite of what you should be doing here. Mertz is almost totally incapable of throwing down the field, so the safeties should be in the box run stuffing, and the corners should be trusted to do their own thing. Michigan can erase problems they may have on the DL by putting extra bodies in the gaps, and that should be objective #1.

That said, on passing downs (like say, when Mertz is in the gun), I'd like to see the Maize & Blue dial up some complex zone coverages. The whole premise of the Multiple defense is to be tricky and confusing and Mertz right now is a QB who can be fooled by almost anything. Cover his first read and he may very well still throw it- right to your CB/LB/S. He doesn't see the underneath LB well, nor the jumping safety, so on passing downs, disguising coverage could well get the Wolverines several turnovers. But stopping the run has to be the focus, because Wisconsin's entire offense grinds to a halt if you take it away. PSU and Notre Dame show that crystal clear.