LOS ANGELES — It was a near-perfect day for football as Wisconsin faced off against the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on Sept. 28. Sunny conditions, an iconic stadium and a fairly massive crowd of Wisconsin fans promised a show at the Los Angeles Coliseum Stadium — and for the first 30 minutes of play, Wisconsin was displaying just that.
Wisconsin’s offense looked practically unrecognizable in the first half, leading many to gain hope that the team could pull off a dramatic upset against the then-No.13 USC.
Following an early touchdown from the Trojans, it only took Wisconsin six plays for sophomore quarterback Braedyn Locke to find Vinnie Anthony II with a 63-yard pass. This marked not only Anthony’s first collegiate touchdown, but also the longest passing touchdown since a 2021 match against Rutgers.
Wisconsin’s coaching staff has made several notes of an air raid offense for the last several years. Despite Wisconsin offensive coordinator Phil Longo verbally making those promises, Badgers fans have yet to truly witness this element of Wisconsin’s game.
But this early touchdown from Locke to Anthony appears to have been the closest thing to an air raid the Wisconsin fans have seen in a while.
Capitalizing on an error made by the Trojans following a punt by Wisconsin’s Atticus Bertrams, Wisconsin running back Tawee Walker completed an 18-yard rushing touchdown.
Walker’s second touchdown of the day came later with 6:29 remaining in the first half.
Seven plays set up this third scoring drive for the Badgers, and the score read 21-10 as the second quarter closed out, but it all fell apart when the Badgers lost momentum entering the second half of play as the Trojans recovered to outscore Wisconsin 28-0.
To viewers watching in the Los Angeles Coliseum Stadium and at home, the Badgers were two different teams in each half of Saturday’s game, a fact that Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell acknowledged.
“Obviously you can’t go on the road and play two different halves and think you’re going to come away with a victory over anybody, let alone a top-10, top-15 program, and that’s what happened,” said Fickell in the post-game press conference.
One element of Southern California's game that Wisconsin’s defense could not respond to was the continuation from third down plays.
“The Trojans converted five straight third downs,” and in doing so, “gained an average of 14 yards on those plays,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Mark Steward noted.
This allowed USC to post a 24-21 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Another lapse from the Wisconsin side came from the controversial way that the coaching staff has approached fourth-and-one situations.
Opting out of a field-goal attempt, Wisconsin failed to convert a crucial fourth-and-one play out of the shotgun, a decision many former players, including Melvin Gordon and J.J Watt, weren’t too happy with.
Fickell, however, did not seem phased by this particular note of criticism.
“I know there’s a lot of opinions to situations like this,” Fickell said in a press conference on Sept. 30. “If we believed that the best thing for us to be was under center, then we would. But it comes down to execution.”
Execution is one thing Badgers fans are still waiting to see from the program that now is 2-2 for the season.
Saturday’s matchup demonstrated the potential this Wisconsin offense has to make big plays and put meaningful points on the board. But this momentum is something that must be carried into the second half.
The Badgers have a difficult conference schedule this season, facing several ranked programs in the near-future with No.6 Oregon and No.7 Penn State at home.
But it’s a fact that Fickell doesn’t want his team to focus on.
“They chose to come here, we all chose to put ourselves in this situation knowing that the Big Ten is something that’s completely different now,” Fickell said in Monday’s press conference. “Sometimes you gotta be a man and you gotta stand up and we’re all going to find out how we can handle adversity.”
