Previously: Offense, Last Year. Resources: My charting, , UW game notes, UW roster, CFBstats

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Once again I don't know who's getting on the bus except quarterback Graham Mertz is not allowed to travel with the team since he's in the protocol through tomorrow. Anyone who caught it after is out. Wisconsin ain't telling nobody who that is so we have to keep going with the assumption they're running out the same guys they did versus Illinois. They won't be.

The film: The one game they played this year: Illinois. Unfortunately Illinois is a disorganized mess of an offense and Brandon Peters has been reduced to chucking passes at anyone named Imatorbhebhe regardless of coverage. If Michigan's offense is anything like that again this will be a blowout.

Personnel: My diagram:

PDF Version, full-size version (or click on the image). Milton and Bell are on star watch, OL on cyan watch.

If there's a Badger out there who knows what they call these positions internally please share; until then I'm using the authority vested in me as Wisconsin's annual Foe Filmer to create new names for the OLBs:

• Strongside Outside Linebacker: SCHOBERT
• Weakside Outside Linebacker: WATT

These names are Creative Commons licensed for all uses, commercial or otherwise, without attribution. Enjoy.

There are no weaknesses but relative ones. Michigan's struggles to find a good nose tackle aren't made any easier to stomach that Wisconsin unearthed a local 3* in NT #95 Keeanu Benton (+9/-2.5) last year. He can two-gap and keep his linebackers clean, and did all that damage in about 20 snaps because they lift him on passing downs (there were many). It's also troubling that they can get another year of eligibility for the stout senior ends, SDE/5T #97 Isaiahh Loudermilk (+11.5/-3), and WDE/3T #93 Garrett Rand (+8/-1.5), who's been around so long that he played in the Grant Newsome game. The first backup remains the walk-on they hated two years ago but DE #92 Matt Henningsen (+3/-2) is now 286 and a redshirt junior. They got a redshirt on the other guy, DE #99 Isaiah Mullens, who came on for some late pass rush. NT #91 Bryson Williams was the banged up guy true freshman Benton Wally Pipped last year; Williams hasn't been seen much since. Depth could be an issue.

[After THE JUMP: Cheese Factory, and a new feature]

The starting DL do a good job of letting the linebackers read and react; this corps is about 99% the latter. WLB #57 Jack Sanborn (+14.5/-4.5, +0/-2 coverage) is the most kamikaze. He's a dangerous blitzer and loves to shoot a gap when he sees a puller. He also likes to peek into the backfield, which can get him in trouble if you can sell him on the wrong gap.

His counterpart, MLB #45 Leo Chenal (+6/-3, +0/-2 coverage) is more circumspect; he played a lot as a true freshman last year and retains a remnant of those jitters. Walk-on ILB #58 Mike Maskalunas rotated in for ~15% of snaps; he's fine.

Most of the excitement came around top-150 rookie at the SCHOBERT position, IE #19 Nick Herbig (+6/-8.5, +4/-2 cov), whose talent is evident but freshmanly erratic. What little yards Illinois got were from gaming to make Herbig's job difficult; for a true freshman in that situation, I thought he stood up pretty well. His edge, and the things opened up when UW brings down a safety to cover him, are the most likely avenues for easy yards against this defense. The weakside OLB is 75% rush end. WATT #41 Noah Burks (+5/-1.5, +2/-0 cov) is a solid fit for the role. Backups are last year's weak starter #50 Izayah Green May (+0/-1.5, +0/-2 cov) and veteran #98 CJ Goetz (+3/-2, +0/-2 cov) are not worth taking the starters off the field.

With an increased focus on man coverage the safeties' jobs have become more distinct. SS #25 Eric Burrell (+1.5/-4, +5/-4 coverage) was often asked to be an extra linebacker, comically mistimes blitzes, and gets more chirping than he really deserves from Wisconsin fans. FS #18 Collin Wilder (+0.5/-2.5, +3/-0 cov) is a pure coverage guy who spent chunks of this game bailing deep. They list former starter #9 Scott Nelson as an "OR" with Wilder but Nelson didn't appear in this one. The designated nickel who comes in for the NT on passing downs is #31 Madison Cone (+4/-0 coverage)—he's a mighty mite a la Andre Seldon.

The three cornerbacks rotate though they favor keeping field CB #5 Rachad Wildgoose (+3/-2, +3/-2 cov). Wildgoose is a good ol' grabby hoody Wisconsin CB who did keep with Josh Imatorbhebhe. Converted WR #21 Caesar Williams (+1/-2, +0/-2) didn't impress me as much this year as the last time I watched him; his –2 was for Vincent Graying a sideline prayer to the other Imatorbhebhe; your therapists all said I can't show it to you. He rotates evenly with CB #1 Faion Hicks (+0/-1, +0/-2cov), a member of the coulda-been-a-Wolverine club because he played with Bush, Gil, and Metellus in high school. Hicks would have fit right in Ann Arbor, IE he's slow and grabby. Backup CB #4 Done Burton got on the field late and had a coverage minus.

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Base Set: 3-4.

Yeah, that's a TITE front and yeah if the TE flexes out into the formation they'll go full Army. Only I get excited about this. Their base is still the 3-4, but against spread personnel they pull the nose for a nickelback. Their DEs are both in the 280s so that's fine, especially with the LBs activating against most things that resemble a hint of a whiff of a run. In this game they were about 50/50 between 3-4, and almost always in an odd or under front, and 2-4-5 personnel, which was based out of an Even (like MSU's) front.

What Shall We Call the Hybrid Today? SCHOBERT, WATT, and

/googles

Nickel Safety. Sigh.

Man or zone coverage: An even mix. They've replaced a lot of the Cover 3 with a straight-up Cover 1 this year but they still do the thing where they rotate from a Cover 3 look to a Cover 2, which means I can post the annual Wisconsin Cover 2 Safety Blitz image again.

No we can't fix the arrow over the WDE's circle. It's tradition.

Pressure: GERG or DR BLITZ: They'll bring it on 1st and 2nd down but trust their four-man rush to get home on passing downs.

Wisconsin is built to stop the run first and foremost. I'll get into detail further down.

Dangerman:

The guy you're going to notice the most is the WLB, Jack Sanborn.

#57 inside linebacker on the bottom who's blitzing

He doesn't stay blocked and has that traditional annoying Wisconsin linebacker knifing-under-your-run-game quality that their cloners copyrighted a decade ago. The best player on the team however is either SDE Isiahh "Spellcheckkahh" Loudermilk or NT Keeanu Benton. Loudermilk is steady and really makes use of his length to control attempted blocks. Benton has more impact per play but he's not on the field for half of them. Go ahead and watch this play 40 times and decide yourself:

Weirdly WDE Garrett Rand is listed as an "OR" on the roster. He's basically Juaquin Feazell, Michigan's underappreciated late-'90s utility DL.

OVERVIEW:

This all takes some extrapolation because Illinois's offense is so disorganized and inept. Wisconsin had the luxury of selling out against the run and leaving some questionable defenders alone. But that's nothing new for this program. They're going to throw five guys at the line and two more are shooting into your backfield at the first opportunity. For this reason good offenses have been able to do a lot of damage with RPOs in the past. We're stuck with Illinois so you have to imagine this goes to the WR running a post on the top.

The Badgers disguise this weakness by rolling safeties down at the snap or with cross-formation motion, changing the look and screwing with your reads. In general however there's going to be space behind the linebackers, either for PA or multi-read RPOs, because they can't resist a run look.

Illinois did not. The Illini were in fact almost completely shut down except when Wisconsin edge defenders were astonished that Brandon Peters can run (keep watching; this happened on back-to-back plays).

As we learned in 2018, the Wisconsin system breaks down when they have to turn around and chase something.

Any rival of Minnesota is going to be aware of this defect. The "Wisconsin Blitz" I posted above is their answer to teams that throw behind the five-man pressures, dropping an outside linebacker under your easy read. I don't think they purposely went to a 404 Tite because it's a defense made for this sort of thing—they got there naturally by trying to defend 2010s offenses from their base 3-4—but that's really what they're doing. Watch the SOLB SCHOBERT at the top, #19. He doesn't have a particularly interesting job or a hard one; it's just that his path from the slot to his zone puts him right where you want to throw a slant or a post to the receiver at the top.

This too has a counter. Since we talked about defending MESH this week and everybody runs it I had my eye out for Illinois to run one against Wisconsin's OLB drop. Sure enough he got the RB Wheel and it was a mismatch:

It's not an easy defense to crack, especially for offenses based on making reads and powerful blocks. But if Harbaugh's staff has a guy who well-versed in read/RPO/spread concepts that use a running back out of the backfield to take advantage of athletic and speed mismatches in space, this is the week to turn the reigns over to that guy and see what he comes up with. If not, just chuck it down the sidelines.

Your Moment of Zen: