MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin offensive coordinator Phil Longo does his best to insulate himself in an effort to prepare his team each week. But he isn’t immune to the fact that there is a high bar to meet the demands of the fan base, particularly given his success at his previous stops while running his variation of the Air Raid offense.
So when Longo met with reporters Monday afternoon, he acknowledged the delicate dance required in doing his job. When expectations are high, he said, it can be disappointing when his offense doesn’t score 45 points each week. In the end, however, nothing replaces winning.
“If we’re going to be a little less explosive or a little more conservative or a little more efficient to win a game, that’s what we’re going to do,” Longo said. “Whatever it takes to win the next football game is our approach.
“I think fans love seeing points and they love seeing big plays. I think any of them would trade those for wins just about any day of the week. And I’m here to please coach (Luke) Fickell. And this staff is here to put an offense on the field that helps us win the games. You would hope that the fans enjoy winning more than anything else, and that’s the only goal that we have in preparation for each week.”
Longo certainly is correct that it’s better for Wisconsin to be 2-0 ahead of a huge measuring-stick game against No. 4 Alabama at Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday rather than dealing with the cataclysmic fallout from losing against a smaller-conference foe. But it’s also fair to evaluate how Wisconsin has won and how the product we’ve seen could portend for the rest of this season. Even if two games aren’t a particularly large sample, they are enough to yield important trends that generate questions given the caliber of opponents played and the challenges on the horizon.
Wisconsin ranks 51st nationally in rushing offense, 75th in total offense, 87th in scoring offense and 89th in passing offense. Yes, the Badgers have done enough to beat Western Michigan and South Dakota, showing grit and execution during the fourth quarter. They also don’t seem to do anything consistently enough at an exceptionally high level. With five ranked teams on the schedule — Alabama, USC, Penn State, Oregon and Nebraska — as well as five other teams that rank in the top 50 nationally in total defense, there must be considerable improvement.
One glaring area early has been a lack of explosive plays. According to TruMedia, Wisconsin ranks 133rd out of 134 FBS teams in explosive play rate, which is defined as runs of at least 12 yards and passes of at least 16 yards. Just six percent of Wisconsin’s plays have been of the explosive variety (9 of 150), ahead of only Air Force, which runs the triple-option and has an explosive play rate of 3.7 percent.
For context, Iowa’s offense a year ago, which ranked last nationally in yards per game by nearly 30 yards and was next-to-last in scoring offense under then-coordinator Brian Ferentz, had an explosive play rate of 7.1 percent. Wisconsin wasn’t markedly better and ranked 104th nationally in explosive play rate at 10.4 percent. The Badgers finished 7-6 and scored their fewest points per game on average in 19 years.
Longo noted that Wisconsin made steps forward from Week 1 to Week 2, an encouraging development. The Badgers had just three explosive plays against Western Michigan and six against South Dakota. It’s also worth noting that, while explosive plays are down, sustained drives are up. Six drives have lasted at least 13 plays through two games. The Badgers had five all of last season.
But whether Longo’s offense is built to maintain that execution level without at least a handful more of those big plays against better opponents remains to be seen. Of those six 13-play drives, just one ended in a touchdown, although another ended at the 2-yard line as Wisconsin salted the game away against South Dakota.
“I think there’s not a glaring major concern, which is a good thing,” Longo said. “And I don’t think we’re really top shelf in anything yet right now either. So it’s the everyday grind to just continue to keep getting better across the board so the overall product of the offense gets better.
“From an OC standpoint, I think we’ve got to continue to do what we need to do to create more explosives. We increased that from game one to game two, and that’ll continue to be an emphasis for us moving forward.”
Wisconsin’s offense has taken a considerably different approach early this season with its formation and personnel packages based on the team’s strengths, which lend itself toward a more methodical path. While Wisconsin’s primary offensive set remains 11 personnel — one running back, one tight end and three wide receivers —the Badgers have used that package 50 percent of the time, down from 68.4 percent last season, per TruMedia.
Wisconsin subsequently has increased its usage of 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends and two wide receivers) from 6.6 percent of plays last season to 29.3 percent because of confidence in tight ends Riley Nowakowski and Tucker Ashcraft. Wisconsin’s use of 20 personnel (two running backs and three wide receivers without any tight ends) has increased from just 0.5 percent to 9.3 percent. Meanwhile, Wisconsin has substantially decreased its use of 10 personnel (one running back and four wide receivers) from 21.8 percent of its snaps last season to 6.7 percent of snaps this season.
Those numbers, Fickell said, have been by design to provide Wisconsin with what he believes will be the tools necessary to win more physical Big Ten games later this season.
“We’re prepared for that, whether that’s two tight ends, whether that’s slowing things down, whether that’s being extra physical, that’s a part of that efficiency of what we’re doing,” Fickell said.
A key to success will be Wisconsin’s ability to balance its desire for efficiency with big-play potential that can swing games. Fickell said the most important thing he recognizes about successful offenses is that they create space.
Fickell also said coaches needed to do a better job of giving quarterback Tyler Van Dyke more opportunities to take shots down the field because the staff trusts his ability to make good decisions. Van Dyke has completed just 2 of 8 passes that traveled at least 15 yards in the air, according to TruMedia.
Both of those completions came against South Dakota — a 32-yarder to receiver Vinny Anthony II after he was flushed from the pocket and a 50-yard touchdown to CJ Williams on a run-pass option. Van Dyke’s eight attempts of 15-plus air yards is tied for the 110th-most such attempts in the country. Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord leads the FBS with 26 attempts.
“I think we all know that some shots down the field, some ability to create some of those different plays is something we’ve got to continue to grow with,” Fickell said. “I don’t know how. Obviously, it’s a part of the plan to what you’ve got to be able to do. But there’s a nature to that of being aggressive, giving your quarterback some freedom to do some of those things and to take some of those shots. We’re trying to figure out where that is.”
Longo, for his part, said he believes the offense has made considerable strides in his second season and that he likes where things are headed. He pointed out that Wisconsin had won four of its last five games dating to last season and that in the only loss during that stretch, against LSU in the ReliaQuest Bowl, it produced one of its best offensive performances.
Wisconsin under previous coaches dating to Barry Alvarez generally was defined offensively by its physical, run-first identity. What Wisconsin is and wants to be under Longo has not consistently materialized, but he said three components are most important to him in formulating that identity as an offensive coordinator.
One is the physicality to run the ball downhill, which he said he believed was “improving over last year,” in part because of how well receivers and tight ends were blocking at the second and third levels. He also said he wanted to be efficient in everything the offense does. He’d rather have four yards rushing on every play than a 90-yard run and nine other carries for nine yards. Longo noted better efficiency on first down allowed him as a playcaller to be in second down situations that weren’t obvious to the defense.
Third, he wants his players to perform with situational awareness. He said he had seen a drastic improvement in that area because of their knowledge and cited that receivers had done a better job of identifying the first down marker and not falling to the ground short after the catch, as they did a year ago.
Even if there have been incremental improvements in those areas, the jump has not been significant enough to match expectations. Wisconsin doesn’t have to score 45 points a game, but it must perform at a higher level to give the Badgers a chance to win the types of games against Alabama and beyond.
(Top photo of Tyler Van Dyke: Jeff Hanisch / USA Today)
