Wisconsin football saw its season end without bowl practices for the first time since 2001. The Badgers hit a new low this century in year two of the Luke Fickell era, and will face a critical get-right year in 2025.

Over the next two weeks, BadgerBlitz.com will examine the 2024 Badgers position by position. Today, we'll continue with the offensive line, a position that took some steps forward under first year position coach AJ Blazek, but still has strides to make in order to return to the Wisconsin standard.

POSITIONAL REVIEWS: Quarterbacks | Running Backs | Wide Receivers | Tight Ends |

Wisconsin's offensive line got off to a slow start, picked up some steam during the lighter portion of its schedule and took some a few steps back towards the end of the season. However, that was mostly in regards to the push it got in the running game. In terms of pass-protection, it was mightily consistent all year.

The Badgers surrendered 13 sacks over 12 games, or 1.08 sacks-per-game, which tied them for seventh-best in the entire country. Pro Football Focus only credits six of those sacks as having been directly given up by an offensive linemen.

Besides Riley Mahlman, who uncharacteristically struggled in pass protection at times (18 pressures allowed) especially towards the end of the season, no Badger offensive lineman allowed more than nine pressures.

Overall, the pass-blocking from this unit was impressive, especially considering the sub-par quarterback and skill position play it had to contend with. That tends to lend itself to a lot of coverage sacks, but that wasn't the case for Blazek's unit.

There were good times in the run blocking department, like the absolute clinic Wisconsin put on against Rutgers — the Badgers ran for 309 yards in that game. Then there were the bad times, like the Penn State game — the Badgers mustered a measly 81 yards on 27 carries.

But past the game-by-game statistics, Wisconsin couldn't get its running game off the ground nearly as much as it needed or wanted to. Sure, the Badgers ran for a somewhat respectable 149 yards against Alabama, for example, but that number doesn't tell the story. They were still dominated in the trenches and couldn't establish the ground game whatsoever. That was the case for many of Wisconsin's games this fall, and an inability to consistently move bodies in the ground game coupled with poor quarterback play was predictably a recipe for disaster.

Considering the experience the Badgers boasted along the offensive front this season, the ineptitude on the ground was troublesome. Four of Wisconsin's five starters were at least fourth-year players. The standards for offensive linemen are high in Madison, and Camp Randall Stadium has certainly seen stouter groups. Still, the 2024 season begged the question: what will it take for the Badgers to get back to their offensive line play of yesteryear?

Left tackle Jack Nelson and right guard Joe Huber are out of eligibility, but the rest of Wisconsin's offensive line remains intact for the 2025 campaign. The right tackle Mahlman will run it back in Madison, as will center Jake Renfro and left guard Joe Brunner. That means it's open season on left tackle and right guard.

At left tackle, the obvious choice would be Kevin Heywood. The freshman played the sixth-most snaps along the offensive line this fall, all of which came at left tackle. The former four-star, Rivals150 prospect would appear to be the heir apparent.

At right guard, JP Benzschawel makes plenty of sense. He's patiently waited his turn, as he'll be a redshirt senior in 2025. All of his snaps this fall came at right guard as well.

Plenty of other options exist for the Badgers, however. Rising sophomore Emerson Mandell could make a push for the guard spot; he's a mountain of a man and played the second-most snaps of Wisconsin's freshman offensive line class behind Heywood. At tackle, Barrett Nelson and Leyton Nelson could feasibly make a push at tackle.

The offensive line may have returned three starters, but there's still plenty to sort out this fall. The good news is that Wisconsin should be in a much better place depth-wise than it was last season in the offensive trenches.

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