1. More touches for Corey Clement
Thus far this season, Corey Clement has had 15 or 16 carries in three of the team’s four games. Averaging 5.2 yards per carry despite a long of only 23 yards, Clement has been nothing if not dependable for chunks of yards to keep the team ahead of the chains.
With Melvin Gordon taking the ball 32 times against South Florida, one has to ask why they gave him such a heavy workload. Clement carried the ball 16 times for 77 yards and pulled in a reception for 28 yards.
Look for both backs to have 20 to 25 touches against Northwestern with an emphasis on heavily working both in the passing game to build Tanner McEvoy’s confidence for his first true road game. That confidence ould be imperative.
2. Finding a second wide receiver
As good as Alex Erickson has been—and with him, tight end Sam Arneson—it has exposed just how few receptions the rest of the receiving corps has. McEvoy has 26 completions to wide receivers this season. Erickson has 21 of those receptions.
That in itself has not been bad; in fact, having one real receiver has been a hallmark of the Wisconsin offense for the past two seasons under the “throw it to Abbrederis” method. But by and large, this strategy has made the Badgers susceptible against top corners.
Of those five remaining receptions, Jordan Fredrick has two, George Rushing has one, Reggie Love has one and Kenzel Doe has one, with the longest reception by any of those four going for 17 yards on a Fredrick catch across the middle.
Fredrick will find himself on the field due to his excellent blocking skills and has the experience to make plays, but if I were to guess who will be the breakout player, I’d pick George Rushing. The freshman has looked solid as a route runner and McEvoy’s downfield passing will, hopefully, improve with time.
3. Fixing a leaky secondary
Against South Florida, the Badgers gave up only eight receptions. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that if Mike White was a halfway decent quarterback, that number could have been significantly higher as receivers got over the top of the defense time and again.
Lubern Figaro made a big play to force the fumble at the 10-yard line, but the fact remains Kennard Swanson made it over the top of the defense.
Furthermore, as good as he was last season, Sojourn Shelton has been a liability this season. Some solace has been that Darius Hillary has looked very good and the combination of Derrick Tindal and Devin Gaulden has been serviceable in the nickel corner role, but even a bad team like South Florida was able to beat them downfield.
Against Northwestern, the Badgers will need to improve on the outside through a combination of pressuring the quarterback to speed up Trevor Siemian’s decisions and tighter coverage on receivers with better safety help from Figaro and Michael Caputo.
4. Badger woes at Ryan Field
In 95 career meetings with the Wildcats, the Badgers are a healthy 57-33-5. They have won the past two meetings by a combined score of 105-29. Unfortunately for the Badgers, outside of Camp Randall Stadium, they have not fared quite so well against Northwestern.
Wisconsin has lost three in a row against Northwestern at Ryan Field, the biggest defeat a nine-point loss. Ryan Field has been the kryptonite for the Badgers, who have been ranked in the Top-20 for each of the three losses.
5. Which Northwestern will we see?
Northwestern opened up the season 0-2, losing home games to Cal and Northern Illinois. After an unconvincing home win against the Western Illinois Leathernecks, the Wildcats marched into Happy Valley and came out victorious 29-6 against a previously undefeated Penn State team.
So what changed? On paper, not a lot, but games are not won and lost on paper. The largest contributing factor to the Wildcats win was their run defense, holding Penn State to just 50 rushing yards and 3-of-17 on third down conversions.
If their defense can take away the run game from the Badgers, McEvoy will be forced to air the ball out, making things very difficult for the Badgers. While Penn State’s rushing attack is a far cry from the Badgers’, winning a game at Beaver Stadium is always tough sledding and will give them confidence to try and knock off the Badgers at Ryan Field.
