BadgerBlitz.com returns the weekly 'Stock Up, Stock Down' for the 2023 season. In this series, we'll offer evaluations of players on Wisconsin's roster in the context of their 'stock.' Performance, playing time and opportunity are all factored into the movement of a player's stock.

Jake Chaney was Wisconsin's best defensive player against Iowa, continuing his fantastic season. On Monday, he supplanted Maema Njongmeta on the depth chart, and it's clear to see why. Chaney is second on the team in total tackles with 36, and its not exactly close. He's played incredibly tenacious these past few weeks, relying on his speed and instincts to make plays all over the field.

It's been an odd season for Wisconsin's defense, but Chaney has been a clear standout. He's on pace for a career year, and is beginning to look like the second-most important player on this unit after Hunter Wohler.

Luke Fickell promised changes to the kickoff unit if Jack Van Dyke continued to be unable to keep the ball in bounds, and those changes finally came against Iowa. Gavin Lahm leapfrogged Van Dyke on the depth chart and at the kickoff specialist position, handling every kickoff against Iowa.

Lahm was serviceable if not spectacular. Of his four kickoffs, two went for touchbacks. Iowa's average starting field position after a Lahm kick was around the 30 yard line. Perhaps most importantly, though, Lahm kept the ball in bounds.

Fickell, whose fingerprints are all over Wisconsin's special teams, likely recognized the crucial role field position would play in the Iowa game when making the decision to pivot to Lahm. Though the Badgers still lost the game, I would expect Lahm to remain the kickoff specialist for the time being.

Where has Njongmeta been this year? Wisconsin's most decorated player on defense in the preseason has had a shockingly quiet season, and has been surpassed in playing time by Chaney and Jordan Turner.

Last season, the linebacker led the Badgers with 95 total tackles. This year, he has 19 through half the season. Players like Jason Maitre and Preston Zachman have more tackles than he does through six games. It's hard to put into words just how surprising that is.

Against Iowa, Njongmeta played just six snaps. He played 22 against Rutgers and of course, none against Purdue. Now, the linebacker hasn't played up to his standards when he has seen the field — he's missed tackles at a rate of 17.9 percent, which would be a career-worst. Still, Njongmeta's lack of playing time is puzzling.

In the offseason, safety Austin Brown received plenty of hype as a sneaky, under-the-radar player whose talents would force Mike Tressel to utilize him this year. Brown has only appeared in three games to this point while other safeties like Zachman have seen much more playing time.

Brown's playing time against Iowa was short lived, and ultimately detrimental to the Badgers' efforts. He played one series on defense, which lasted all of three snaps. On the first play, he made a potentially touchdown-saving tackle on Kaleb Johnson, who still made a nice cutback for a nine-yard gain. After Rodas Johnson blew up the second down play, Brown found himself face-to-face with Leshon Williams in the open field, and he missed the tackle that wound up springing the Iowa tailback for an 82-yard touchdown.

It was a bad play by Brown, but he's not getting a whole lot of chances to show what he can do. His limited playing time is yet another one of the surprising personnel decisions Tressel has made this season.

We'll include the entire six-man rotation for this portion of the stock report. Wisconsin's offensive line simply wasn't good enough against Iowa, and generally hasn't been good enough all season.

Iowa only registered one sack against the Badgers, but it happened to be a crucial safety. Other than that, the pass protection didn't give either Tanner Mordecai nor Braedyn Locke the requisite time to consistently go through progressions against a tough defense, and the offense looked lost because of it.

They also didn't do enough in the run-blocking department. Wisconsin averaged just 3.7 yards-per-carry against the Hawkeyes. In the much-maligned short yardage situations, they failed to create enough space for Braelon Allen to pick up the first down on several occasions.

"Where I thought the offensive line played a good game, we need them to play even better," Fickell said on Monday. "So those are the things where you say, who do we turn towards, who's gonna be the spark?"

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