Wisconsin football report card from 17–7 loss to Minnesota in battle for the Axe
Handing out grades for the Wisconsin Badgers offense, defense, and special teams from the 17-7 loss to Minnesota in Week 14.
Some losses simply end a season, while others say something larger about where a program sits heading into the offseason. The University of Wisconsin football team’s 17–7 defeat at Minnesota did both.
In a snowy Huntington Bank Stadium, the Badgers closed Year 3 of the Luke Fickell era at 4–8, their fewest wins in a full season since 1995, and their most losses since Barry Alvarez’s first year on the job in 1990.
They missed a bowl game for the second straight year, something that hasn’t happened since 1991–92. And after a November that briefly suggested the team was turning a corner, the finale instead resurfaced every issue that has kept Wisconsin from pulling itself out of the rut.
“That’s a tough one to swallow,” Fickell said. “Like any last game, in particular at the end of the season, rivalry game, all the things that build up to this — we weren’t able to get the job done. There are a lot of reasons why we didn’t get the job done today. I’m not just going to point at one specific thing, but to me, it’s that we weren’t able to play complementary football. We weren’t able to take care of the football. We weren’t able to be better than we needed to be in the red zone. It’s difficult and tough to swallow.
“I know that locker room feels as bad as you possibly could, and I wanted nothing more than to end this thing for the seniors in a way that they could be proud of.”
The Axe went to Minnesota. This miserable season now heads into the program’s history books, and the only thing left that truly matters is how this staff attacks the offseason ahead.
With that as the backdrop, let’s hand out some grades.