MADISON, Wis. – Don’t look now, but the Wisconsin Badgers are feeling a little better about their running game with three games left to play in the regular season.
Led by senior running back Corey Clement, the Badgers have averaged 4.3 yards per carry in their last four games: 5.1 against then-No. 2 Ohio State, 3.4 against Iowa, 5.8 against Nebraska, and 3.3 last week against Northwestern in their 21-7 win over the Wildcats.
Clement in particular has seemed to pick up some steam after working through an ankle injury that slowed him up during the first half of UW’s schedule: he’s gotten at least 30 carries in two of Wisconsin’s last three games, and he’s rushed for at least 106 yards three of his last four games.
Combine that with an offensive line that is healthier now than they were in September and October and it’s easy to see why the Badgers have reason to be optimistic moving forward- even if they still have work to do.
The key moving forward is consistency, according to redshirt freshman offensive lineman Jon Dietzen.
“I think it’s just that we need to find the consistency,” Dietzen said after practice on Tuesday. “We’ve got a lot of highs, but we’ve got a lot of lows like those few series at Northwestern where we couldn’t get down the field.”
“In every game we’ve had those times where it’s like ‘Oh man, the run game is really coming together’ and then there’s a series where it’s like ‘Where is it?’”
The Badgers could use more productivity from their running game in the red zone in particular. As a team the Badgers have scored just 18 touchdowns out of 33 trips in to the red zone this season, in part because they haven’t been as productive on first and second down when they get close to finishing off a drive.
Dietzen said having drives stall out has been challenging for the offense to deal with, but he thinks that getting everyone on the offense on the same page could help spark a turnaround there.
“It’s frustrating as an offensive player anytime you work your way down the field and then you get stopped,” Dietzen said. “It’s more frustrating when you get stopped by your own mistakes.”
The potential for success is there, though. It wasn’t a red zone play, but Dietzen said wide receiver Jazz Peavy’s 46-yard touchdown run last week against Northwestern was an example of everyone on the first team offense knowing what the rest of the unit was doing- combined with nice effort down the field to finish off the play.
“It was to the point where I knew that (Ryan) Ramczyk knew that (Michael) Deiter knew that Beau (Benzschawel) knew that David (Edwards) knew what each of us was doing,” Dietzen said. “I think in that sense, when you get to that point with your offense, when you know what you’re going to do and you know exactly how the play is going to roll, then everybody can be their best self.”
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John Veldhuis covers Wisconsin football, basketball and recruiting for BadgerBlitz.com on the Rivals.com network. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnVeldhuis.
