Wisconsin football report card from the abysmal 37-0 loss to Iowa
Handing out grades for the Wisconsin Badgers offense, defense, and special teams from the 37-0 loss to Iowa in Week 7.
Before the game started, you could pretend the Wisconsin football team’s throwback uniforms meant something. A nod to history. A chance to reset the vibe during a rivalry game in a season that keeps slipping.
They spent an entire offseason circling this matchup. Every lift, every 42-pushup reminder, every defensive line rep built around erasing the memory of last year’s embarrassment in Iowa City. The message was simple: get bigger, get tougher, stop the run, and take back some pride. If there was ever a game to show something tangible under Fickell, you know, something that brought back even a sliver of belief, this was it.
Then came an unsportsmanlike flag on outside linebacker Tyreese Fearbry, who took it upon himself to meet the Hawkeyes at midfield and run his mouth before the ball was even kicked. It proved to be the first snowball that would soon turn into an avalanche of cascading failures.
Whatever proof of concept was supposed to look like 32 games into the Fickell era at Wisconsin, Saturday revealed just how directionless this program has become. Iowa 37, Wisconsin 0. It was the Hawkeyes’ largest margin of victory in the rivalry, which dates back to 1894, and a complete and utter ass kicking that was eerily reminiscent of last year’s debacle.
“That’s as low as it can be,” Fickell said. “I apologize. I apologized to our guys, to not have them ready. I’m dumbfounded in a lot of ways, but that’s my job. This is a game that we have been talking about since January, and we have been doing a lot of things to make sure we were ready and prepared. And, obviously, we were not... it is a challenge right now. This is no place I’ve ever been, but I don’t know where else there is to go.
“We knew that it was going to be an emotional game. We made a bonehead move before the game even started, which is undisciplined, but it was something that, emotionally, we knew we had to be ready for, and we were not. So I’m crushed, disappointed in myself and in our team, but we got one thing to do, and we’ve got to keep swinging.”
It was the first shutout at home for Wisconsin since 1980, and the first time Iowa has blanked the Badgers since 1996. The boos were justified, and the noticeably empty seats in Camp Randall Stadium were a reflection of a fan base that’s started to trade frustration for apathy.
Wisconsin fell to 2-4 overall and 0-3 in the Big Ten, its ninth straight loss to a Power 4 opponent. The loss felt less like one bad night and more like a verdict on where things currently stand: a program in Year 3 of Fickell’s tenure with absolutely no identity, no path forward, and no answers.
With that as the backdrop, let’s hand out some grades.
Offense: F
You can dress it up with context. You cannot excuse the product.
Wisconsin finished with 209 yards on 57 snaps, which is 3.7 per play. Eight completions for 82 passing yards at 3.9 per attempt. They had 127 rushing yards on 36 carries at 3.5 per. Three turnovers. Two interceptions. Two fumbles, one of them lost. Three unsportsmanlike penalties on the team across the night, the kind of details that kill any chance of rhythm.
The advanced numbers from Game on Paper somehow paint an even uglier picture. Wisconsin finished with a minus-0.50 EPA per play, which was in the 0th percentile nationally. Yes, 0th. They averaged minus-1.11 EPA per dropback, also in the 0th percentile, and their minus-0.14 EPA per rush ranked in just the 28th percentile. On a per-drive basis, the Badgers averaged 4.67 plays and 19.75 yards. I’m not sure what more can be said.
Hunter Simmons made a second straight start at quarterback, completing 8-of-21 pass attempts for 82 yards, and endured the kind of first quarter that buries you. Two interceptions, including one thrown straight to a defensive lineman, and a backward pass that Iowa fell on. Those three giveaways spotted the Hawkeyes 17 points and tilted the field for good.
The limitations around him were obvious. The sixth different offensive line combination in six games never found a push, and the pass game never threatened vertically. A fourth-down rollout finally beat leverage and put the ball in Lance Mason’s hands for an easy conversion. It hit the turf.
The plan under Jeff Grimes was intended to help reestablish a physical floor and get back to running the football. Wisconsin is averaging 3.14 yards per rush this season. Don Morton’s 1989 team was better than that. When everything is this compressed, you need either explosives or a clean operation. The Badgers had neither. Once Iowa started stacking the box and taking away the underneath throws, Wisconsin had no answer.
“We were just never able to find anything down the field to create any energy or any momentum or establish any drive,” Fickell said.
If you’re still looking for some signs of positivity, it starts with redshirt freshman running back Dilin Jones. He carried the ball 16 times for 69 yards, averaging 4.3 yards per carry, and ran with a tremendous amount of heart all night. In a game where positives were nearly impossible to find, that kind of fight deserves to be acknowledged.
A few other small bright spots came up front. At left guard, Joe Brunner moved some people in the run game. Jake Renfro, returning as the starting center, brought some stability and, outside of his penalty on the opening drive, played pretty well. The starting five up front were credited with allowing just two pressures in pass protection, which is at least notable given how the rest of the night went.
But looking for anything beyond that feels like mental gymnastics. I’m not prepared to attempt it, not when you lose key players like Trech Kekahuna, who looked like a central piece of the game plan before getting hurt on the opening drive and never returning, or Darrion Dupree, who later had to be carried off the field. None of that helps this mess either.
“That’s my job, still pounding away at it,” Fickell said. “I had a good feeling that we were gonna play well tonight. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but it was going to be a battle. We wanted to get ourselves in a position where we could grow, and from the very beginning, we did not.”
No matter how you slice it, this week’s grade lands at an F. This grade reflects the body of work. Zero points on the scoreboard tells the story.
Defense: D
It’s fair to say the defense inherited bad fields and terrible situations. It’s also fair to say the defense never seized the night. Iowa ran for 210 yards at 5.8 per carry and scored four times on the ground. The Hawkeyes led 17-0 after fifteen minutes and 23-0 at the half. That was the ball game.
The offseason was built around a number: 42. Every lift, every post-practice pushup, every weight-room rep was meant to erase the memory of last year’s 42-10 humiliation in Iowa City. On Saturday, the opponent lined up and ran it again and again because it worked. Maybe not with the same volume, but with the same effect. When Iowa started leaning on the run game, Wisconsin couldn’t hold the line. Edge fits spilled runs that never got cleaned up. A crease here, a missed tackle there, and Iowa kept staying on schedule without needing to be anything more than solid.
The advanced data underline just how empty those offseason promises look now. Iowa finished with a 0.15 EPA per rush, which sits in the 77th percentile nationally this season. The Hawkeyes didn’t need to throw, but when they did, Wisconsin’s secondary at least held them to a minus-0.21 EPA per dropback, which ranked in the 24th percentile nationally, and just a 0.01 EPA per play overall, which placed them in the 47th percentile.
So yes, technically, the defense kept Iowa from being efficient through the air. But when you can run the ball that easily, efficiency doesn’t matter.
Wisconsin’s front seven held up in spurts and had a few individual players perform well enough, but Iowa dictated everything. The Badgers generated just five total pressures and missed 12 tackles. They couldn’t stop the run, and that’s what this matchup always comes down to. The winner of the Heartland Trophy has now been the team with more rushing yards for 14 straight meetings, dating back to 2013. This loss made it 14.
There were isolated moments. Ricardo Hallman went out and grabbed a first-quarter interception when the score was already slipping away, giving Wisconsin a brief glimmer of hope. The front bowed up in goal-to-go to force a field goal after a short field. None of it altered the arc. No takeaways after that. No sudden-change stop that flipped momentum.
“There is no such thing as an easy fix,” Fickell said. “This is not gonna be an easy fix. Pound the rock is the idea of something breaking at some point in time. I’m not gonna say I thought tonight was an opportunity for that, but every night, every Saturday, is an opportunity for that. And it did not happen today. It did not happen tonight. And this [game] was one that kind of metaphorically embodied pound the rock, be physical, be tough, do those things, and see some things change and happen.”
The truth is, Mike Tressel’s defense was put in an impossible spot from the opening kickoff because the offense, which has been among the worst in the country and arguably in program history, stumbled out of the gate. Still, this unit wasn’t anywhere near good enough to overcome it. You can play hard and still be miles from good, and right now, that’s exactly what Wisconsin’s defense is. That’s why the defense lands at a D.
Special Teams: C-
This phase didn’t really do anything to help, but it wasn’t something you could point to as being a mess, either. A punt coverage misread left a returner free because Vinny Anthony beat the ball to the spot and didn’t make the tackle, leaving the Hawkeye returner some room to run. Field position bled away on a night when you had to squeeze every yard.
Additionally, Atticus Bertrams turned in a forgettable performance, averaging 37.7 yards per punt (a long of 42 yards) on six attempts, with two pinned inside the 20. In a game where the offense offered nothing and the defense was stuck on the field for most of the night, he didn’t do Wisconsin many favors in helping to flip field position. Nathanial Vakos handled kickoffs cleanly but never got a chance to attempt a field goal.
There were no catastrophic blocks or botched snaps, and that matters. But when your offense is underwater and your defense is absorbing body blows, special teams has to become a pressure release valve. It was mostly a neutral to slightly negative showing — but nothing horrendous.
Credit to the kickoff and punt team units for avoiding disasters in a blowout. That is the bar today. It cannot be the bar next week or even into the future. For not being a mess, that earns them a C- for the week.
Next up: Ohio State
The trend lines are not subtle. Wisconsin has lost nine straight games to Power 4 opponents, eight of those in the Big Ten. Fickell sits at 15–17 overall and 8–13 in league play since arriving. After the game, he admitted there are not many places where this program is better today than when he took over. That is as candid as you will hear a head coach get in public.
This roster still competes for the most part. The issue is that competing has not produced a functional identity. Offensively, there is no explosive threat and no reliable run game. Defensively, there are too few takeaways and too many chunk plays allowed at the worst possible times. The sideline messaging continually invokes toughness, competitive spirit, and a whole bunch of other catchphrases. But fans are wondering when the words will turn into something that translates onto the field on Saturdays.
“Right this second, we are obviously not feeling real good,” Fickell said regarding whether the team has improved since he took the job. “I can dig deep into it. I think that incrementally, we’ve gotten better talent in some ways. It’s tough to evaluate. The deficiencies, the injuries, and I’m not making excuses, but where we are on the offensive line, and where we are at quarterback, make it really difficult to answer that question.
“As we started Fall Camp, I would tell you that we were in a better place, and incrementally, we had gotten better in those positions. I’d also tell you that I think a lot of other people have gotten, incrementally, a hell of a lot better as well. What that has done is put us in a position where, no, we’re not better than most people, or really anybody that we are playing.”
No. 1 Ohio State is next to visit Camp Randall, then awaits the rest of a schedule that does not care how fragile Wisconsin’s confidence is. You cannot talk your way out of what the film says. You can only try to fix it. Until the Badgers put a competent brand of football on the field, nights like Iowa will keep feeling less like outliers and more like commonplace.
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