Senior writer Jake Kocorowski breaks down 10 things to watch for and know before the No. 17 Wisconsin Badgers face the Central Michigan Chippewas on Saturday afternoon inside Camp Randall Stadium.
1. What improvements do we see from the Wisconsin offense in reducing the number of sacks and tackles for loss allowed?
Feels hard to nitpick when Wisconsin's offense scored 42 points and rolled up 435 yards of offense in Week 1. Junior running back Jonathan Taylor scored four total touchdowns in just about 32 minutes of game play
When asked about the good he saw against USF, offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Joe Rudolph said that guys made plays.
"I think you saw it at every position," Rudolph said on Tuesday. "A lot of guys played big in the moment, did some really positive things and made some big plays out of it."
However, there were glaring areas where the Badgers could improve in this phase of the game. Rudolph called out consistency.
"You saw inconsistencies, things that would come back and hurt you in the long run," Rudolph, the longtime assistant, said. "It’s great to get a victory, and it’s great to have a lot of things to coach going forward, so I think they understood both sides of that.”
USF registered three sacks and 11 tackles for loss, along with three quarterback hurries. As BadgerBlitz.com mentioned earlier this week, Wisconsin ran 34 of its 69 plays out of 11 personnel last week against the Bulls.
“If you’re running your game out of 11 [personnel], you don’t have edges the same way you have edges now," Rudolph said. "You don’t want them regardless, but you just don’t have the personnel groups to go in there and secure both edges and go.
"I did think they were a good d-line, though. I thought they got up the field and made some plays on times where they shouldn’t. I think we can clean some of that up in a big way and need to, so those are some of the areas that will be a focus.”
