The Wisconsin football team finally gave their fans what they desperately craved in Week 3: a dominant win over an inferior opponent.
After a slow start, contrary to how the Badgers had performed in Weeks 1 and 2, the Badgers turned it on over the final 45 minutes to completely dominate the Eagles.
On a snap-by-snap basis, Wisconsin handled their business about as well as they could’ve. But as always, the All-22 tape had good and bad.
Below, BadgerNotes dives into the film, highlighting 10 key plays from the win over Eastern Michigan and what they mean for the Badgers going forward.
Author’s note: Unlike our post-Notre Dame film analysis piece, this week’s film unfortunately isn’t presented in high quality.
Let’s start by getting some of the bad out of the way. Colton Joseph’s first quarter wasn’t pretty, as he threw an interception and had a few more flat-out misfires. But there was a common thread on some of those plays: failing to see (and/or refusing to throw to) an open check-down:
As he rolls to his right, Joseph has running back Bryan Jackson open in the flat. With several defenders in the area, it likely wouldn’t have been a huge gain, but it would’ve been better than this ill-advised throw that Joseph short-armed.
Jackson has plenty of time and space here. In fact, you can see him glance downfield as he’s running out to the flat before looking back at Joseph. The quarterback is hungry for big plays, but he can’t force throws like this.
This play wasn’t as catastrophic, as Joseph simply missed his receiver on the corner route. And while the quarterback deserves some benefit of the doubt, considering I obviously don’t know his reads/progressions, Darrion Dupree is wide open underneath.
On first or second down, perhaps it’s fine to pass up the easy yards and look for the big gain. But this was a 3rd-and-4 in fringe field goal territory; moving the chains should be the top priority.
Let’s cleanse the palate a bit with one of the prettiest throws you’ll see from Joseph all season:
