Wisconsin played its twelfth and final game of the regular season against the Minnesota Golden Gophers, winning 28-14 in Minneapolis on Saturday evening. Luke Fickell and the Badgers will now await their bowl fate and begin to look toward the future.
BadgerBlitz.com brings you our weekly "3-2-1" series, honing in on the Week 13 win over Minnesota, and what it will mean going forward.
THREE THINGS WE LEARNED DURING WISCONSIN'S WIN
1. Wisconsin ultimately won in the trenches
In my takeaways article from after the game, I praised both Braelon Allen and Tanner Mordecai, as that was perhaps the best game that both of them have played all season. But the reason they were so comfortable and productive was the big boys up front.
The offensive line surrendered just two pressures all day, according to Pro Football Focus. They entered allowing an average of 8.2 pressures per game, and four was the lowest they had given up in any game this season.
Even looking past the statistics, the offense was never freer and more capable to do whatever they wanted.
Mordecai had never looked more comfortable. When he wasn’t killing the Gophers through the air, he had more than enough time and room to tuck the ball and run.
It was also clear pretty quickly that the Badgers would be able to run as much as they pleased. On their third drive of the game, they ran on nine of 11 plays, picking up 8.8 yards per carry and burning 5:15 of game time. That was when I knew it would take a disaster for the Badgers to lose.
All in all, they finished with 267 rushing yards, which was their highest total since the season opener, and Mordecai was never really touched.
More importantly, this offense had dealt with inconsistency and disorganization all season, and they finally looked dominant.
“We all know what this program’s been built on, right? It doesn’t mean it has to change. Yes, it might look a little bit different, but it’s still about the physicality, it’s still about the line of scrimmage and it’s still about those guys in the backfield,” Fickell said after the game.
“If I’ve got the biggest smile on my face, it’s because of that. It’s because of the line of scrimmage, it’s because of the ability to pound it and wear somebody down. That’s the way I wanna live my life.”
