Fresh off a dominating display against Bowling Green, No. 19 Wisconsin faces its final nonconference test this Saturday when the Badgers take on South Florida at Camp Randall.
At 2-2, the Bulls have already matched their win total from last season. While the team’s play has taken an encouraging step forward from last fall, the victories haven’t exactly been against high quality programs.
In the season opener, South Florida needed a 275-yard, four-touchdown game from freshman running back Marlon Mack to escape with a 36-31 win over Western Carolina, an FCS team that went 2-10 last season.
Last weekend, the Bulls squeaked by Connecticut at home with a 17-14 victory. UConn is an American Conference doormat whose only win so far has come against Stony Brook, an FCS school.
Regardless, wins represent progress under second-year head coach Willie Taggart, who engineered a two-year turnaround at his previous job at Western Kentucky. Taggart inherited a team that went winless in 2009 and had the Hilltoppers at 7-5 by 2011.
There are some similarities between South Florida’s offense and Wisconsin’s. When discussing the Bulls’ offensive philosophy, head coach Gary Andersen could have just as easily been talking about the Badgers.
“I think that they’re a physical run team. They want to establish the run, play action pass,” Andersen said at a press conference Monday. “They will get into different personnel groups on the offensive side of the football and have some fly sweeps and try to get the ball to the perimeter with their wide receivers.”
Mack is the Bulls’ most dangerous offensive threat, as he’s currently ninth in the nation in rushing yards with 502. He’s scored five of the Bulls’ eight offensive touchdowns this season as well.
Despite the success on the ground, a trio of ineffective quarterbacks has marred South Florida’s offense. Though Mike White has started all four games, Steven Bench and Quinton Flowers have also seen playing time. They have combined to complete just 39 percent of their passes while throwing five interceptions and two touchdowns.
South Florida and Wisconsin are nearly identical in two offensive categories: pass attempts and third down conversion rate. The Bulls have averaged 26 passes per game to the Badgers’ 24, some of the lowest figures in the country. Meanwhile, Wisconsin has been successful on just 38 percent of its third downs and South Florida has converted at a 37 percent rate.
Both teams have some deficiencies on the offensive side of the football. For Wisconsin, many have questioned the inconsistency of redshirt junior quarterback Tanner McEvoy, whose stat lines have been terrible, brilliant and mediocre, respectively, through the first three games of the season.
“Right now we’re a work in progress passing-wise,” said wide receivers coach Chris Beatty. “Those things will correct themselves, the little things, and some of them don’t need to be corrected. Some of them are just opportunity things. To think we’re going to come out and throw for 300 yards every game, we’re not going to do that.”
To prevent defenses from stacking the box and taking away the run, as Western Illinois did so effectively three weeks ago, the Badgers understand they need to incorporate the deep ball.
“Our ability to take those deep shots, when you want to be who we are and run the ball, which has not changed, and your inability to really throw it down there a few times a game and take the top off the coverage…it definitely is going to cause your offense to not be as effective as it could be,” Andersen said.
Still, after a record-breaking rushing tally and a career day from Melvin Gordon last week, it’s hard to be too negative about the Badgers. It will be interesting to see how the running game fares this weekend. The Bulls have held three of their four opponents to less than three yards per carry, albeit against lesser competition.
It will be another early Saturday for Badger fans with kickoff scheduled for 11 a.m.
