Wisconsin Snowflakes: The Defense

What a difference a year makes.  Yes Wisconsin’s line is bad, but still love the vibes!

The defense is real.

full stop

We can haz decent defense…?

Aside from that late junk TD by Wisconsin, well played. Make key TO. Our guys played angry and hungry. Much better than last week. LOVE IT!!

We’ve only played bad offenses so far this year, but this is the best-case scenario for this defense so far. There’s some bending in there, and the end-of-half TD drive was dispiriting, but the defense is doing enough, and crucially the best players, Aidan and Dax, are put into position to make big plays. And they made huge ones.

Klatt needs to pump the brakes on the “ready for OSU” talk, but this is promising. Excellent today. 

Really surprised about this Defense. 

I'm interested to see where we end up in the rankings. With Cinncinati and Notre Dame playing, one of them will end up ranked lower than us. I do NOT see ole miss keeping up with Alabama, so we should move past them. Arkansas just got shut out, so they will move below us, so at a minimum, I see us ranked 11. If Kentucky gives Florida trouble, and OSU looks bad against a good Rutgers, we should be a top 10 team come rankings day. 

No reasonable person can assign anything other than an A.

Good scheme, good effort. The DL held up well against the run and overwhelmed the OL against the pass. We did a good job of mixing blitzes up. Tackling was solid. The one real beef I have is that the coverage on the FG drive was too soft. To me the TD drive was less worrisome (if far more annoying), they just hit two difficult throws on that one.

Will be very interested in UFR - feels like Hinton and Smith are taking real leaps forward. If so, kudos to the coaching and that could be a real bonus compared to pre-season expectations for the position.

Ojabo is turning into an impact player and that's nice. If both ends/OLB can create havoc, that will be great. Vincent Gray is still shaky but all in all this is a defense that makes it challenging to execute many sustained drives in a game. As a Steelers fan they remind me of some Pittsburgh defenses over the past couple years that would bleed yards on drives but were hard to move the ball on consistently and score points. 

Ojabo’s really becoming a playmaker.

Superb effort at Camp Randall.  Really allowed just one TD drive aside from the fg and late TD after pick.   Michigan hit the Wisconsin quarterbacks at least 12 times, all clean hits, no penalties.  That impressed me, as did our second half adjustments after Mertz found his mojo in second quarter.  Hope he is ok too.  Big hitting by both teams today.

I loved the aggressiveness today.  They came after the Wiscy QB all game and it made a big difference.  

Lights out good and man Ojabo!

Really love how these guys are getting after the QB and ball carrier. Great job!

They made plays and really stepped up on third downs. I really like the way they're trending week to week.

Dax Hill was an absolute monster, also great pressure from the d-line all game long

Terrific performance. 1 blip, completely overcome by 3rd quarter anger.

Finally got some turnovers.

Sure, Wisky isn't very good on offense, but at some point you have to acknowledge what these guys are doing.

Hutchinson is a beast. Ojabo is fast becoming an imposing counterpoint. Middle of the line held up.

Dax is making plays all over the field. 

NO PENALTIES.

Well done, Mr. McDonald and defensive stalwarts.

Aside from the one obvious drive, how can we not be delighted?

I mean, they absolutely terrorized Wisconsin's quarterbacks. If they had positive rushing yardage I don't remember it. And this is with the same players that couldn't stop your grandma and all her friends at the nursing home from moving the ball last year. Hutchinson, Ojabo, Hinton, and Smith all seemed to dominate up front. Ross looked great out there. And Dax made up for those first half coverage issues in a big way.

Wow, the DL played aggressive and stopped WI running game. Overall, good job Defense!

DJ Turner was the key player stopping Wisconsin's late drive towards the end of the half. Great pass defense on a deep ball (that some thought should have been PI, but not IMO; and the 3rd down tackle to force the FG). Hope it's recognized in the UFR.

Frustrated at the end of the first half giving up a td in 25 seconds. Thought they might come out with momentum but defense kept the pressure on and knocked Mertz out. Never want a qb to get hurt, just rattle them and that’s what Mertz was- constantly under pressure and then did same to Wolf. Huge win even against a struggling Wisconsin. 
Go Blue!

Dax made hell of a hit (hope Mertz is OK). I am sure future teams have to plan for blitz. They bend sometime break but they definitely are improving. Hoping the cornerback play improves more time. It seems zone defense is getting there. I would love to see how well our DL did in UFR. This Wisconsin OL was not too bad. So encouraged.

The most encouraging thing today was the way the defense responded after giving up that bad end of half TD.  The D owned the second half.  Really, really good performance.  Only thing they gave up was a garbage time TD on a short field after a turnover.  Ojabo's star is rising quickly.

New DC has been a Godsend. We need to keep improving talent on the recruiting trail. DT's and CB's need to be upgraded. Being well coached has improved the overall performance.

Mike MF Macdonald!

Wow.

This is not the best Wisconsin team in that they don't have 4 future high NFL picks on the O Line and Jonathan Taylor back there. But, to hold any upper echelon B1G team to 32 carries for 43 yards (1.3 YPC, not sack adjusted) is quite an impressive feat. To do it on the road, without the help of your home crowd, and to a team that has paved you notably in recent years is also pretty attention grabbing.

I'm not a big fan of 'excluding all the bad aspects, it was perfect aside from that,' but that's actually a pretty accurate accounting method for this game. The Badgers had their little late 2Q rally when Mertz was feeling it briefly and Dike (pronounced Dee-kay) made some plays, one on Dax Hill (who wasn't even in particularly bad coverage). Then, there was the garbage time TD against Makari Paige when the score was 38-10 and the celebration had already begun.

But, other than that, it's hard to point to anything that the Michigan defense did poorly today. Mixed and matched coverages, stayed disciplined. I don't remember any penalties for PI or roughing or anything that changed the momentum. Disciplined. Very far from getting paved. Forced turnovers. Very low Badger time of possession. Almost didn't even know Gemon Green and Vincent Gray were out there with how little happened against them. Good pass rush. Hell, Aidan Hutchinson even finally had an offensive hold called against him!

More of this and some hard hitting against Nebraska.