Wisconsin ended its season on a winning note with a 24-17 over Oklahoma State in the Guaranteed Bowl on Dec. 27. After a brief break, UW will kick up winter conditioning as it begins its early preparation for the 2023 campaign.

Over the next two weeks, BadgerBlitz.com will review each position before turning the page from the 2022 season. Today we'll examine the offensive line.

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The Badgers were a fragile team heading into the second weekend of October. After a shocking manhandling at the hands of Illinois, Paul Chryst got laid off in an even more shocking move. The team desperately needed something to rally behind. They also desperately needed a win.

Enter the Northwestern Wildcats, who were 1-5 at the time. Pat Fitzgerald's squad was struggling mightily, but Wisconsin still needed to go on the road to a rather sleepy Evanston and muster the resolve to handle their business. That's exactly what they did in a dominant 42-7 victory, and the offensive line was one of the main reasons why.

The big boys up front paved the way for the ground game to run for an efficient 193 yards. There weren't any enormous gains on the ground, but it was a steady pummeling of Northwestern's front seven.

The offensive line also had their best game of the season in the pass-blocking department. They gave Graham Mertz, who tossed five touchdowns, all the time he needed to calmly dissect the Wildcats secondary. The pass-blocking was truly lights out. The Northwestern defense managed just one pressure all game. That's it. No sacks, no hits.

"I didn't get touched today," Mertz said after the game.

The Badgers had bigger problems than their offensive line in 2022, but that unit certainly wasn't flawless. Ideally, a starting offensive line is determined in fall camp and that group remains the same throughout the season. Naturally, that's highly unlikely at any level of football due to injuries. But offensive lines need time to gel and learn how to work as a unit, a singular well-oiled machine. They're the heartbeat of the offense, especially in Madison. With Wisconsin trotting out eight different starting combinations at offensive line this season, no wonder that side of the ball didn't have the smoothest year.

The stats from the above chart begin to tell the story. Only two Badgers linemen played 12 games. That alone is a massive problem. If Wisconsin wants any sort of consistency out of their offensive line in 2023, it starts with keeping players healthy and maintaining a firm starting cast.

The drama on the offensive line started early, with Riley Mahlman beating out the highly-touted Logan Brown during fall camp for the starting right tackle job. Brown, however, was still given a chance to showcase what he could do. In Week 1 against Illinois State, before the starters were pulled, Mahlman played 29 snaps at right tackle while Brown played 25.

Brown then started in week two and played all 83 snaps as Mahlman went down with a left knee injury in the opener. He would miss six games, immediately throwing a wrench in offensive line coach Bob Bostad's plans.

Then throw in the constant shuffling of players due to poor performances, many of them happening in game, and you have a recipe for a truly handicapped offensive front. Michael Furtney was in and out of the starting lineup. Trey Wedig, who ended up logging the fourth-most snaps along the offensive line this season, wasn't a day one starter and was inserted several times to try to provide juice to a shaky right side of the line. The tackle would end up starting eight games as an unexpected anchor at right tackle.

The Badgers remain deep and talented along the offensive line. They simply need to put it all together and most importantly, find consistency.

The Badgers offensive line is still awash with talent and blue-chip players, but it's looking fairly thin as spring ball slowly approaches. Expect Luke Fickell and his staff to take a close look at the transfer portal to beef up the offensive front.

Wisconsin will return most of their starting players from a season ago, minus Joe Tippmann who has set his sights on the NFL. The Badgers could be looking for a plug-and-play option via the portal. Jake Renfro, who played under Fickell at Cincinnati, is a top target. He's a highly coveted prospect, and he's already visited Wisconsin and obviously has a relationship with Fickell. Ian Fitzgerald, Joe Huber and Marcellus Johnson are also options.

"I’d be an idiot not to run the football here with the backfield that we have and the offensive line that we have,” coordinator Phil Longo said on Thursday. “I often liken it to a Ferrari in a race. Each year, you try to find a way to improve the tires or jack up the engine, or shave down the car to make it a little lighter so it's faster. You try to take this vehicle that you have, which is our offense, and you try to make it run and work better than the year before.”

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