It feels like ages ago that this was an actual concern, but it really was, at least for me: Wisconsin's Paul Chryst entered 2017 with his best team yet in Madison... and with maybe the least experienced defensive coordinator you'll ever see.
Jim Leonhard is the embodiment of Wisconsin football. A walk-on from Tony, Wisc., he was a three-time All-American and Wisconsin hall of fame inductee, and despite his 5’8 stature, he spent a decade in the pros, starting for about four seasons and picking off 14 passes.
Leonhard retired after 2014, spent a year as basically a staff volunteer for UW in 2015, then landed his first official gig — Wisconsin DBs coach — last fall. And now he’s the coordinator for a defense that has ranked in the Def. S&P+ top 10 for back-to-back years. After Aranda left for LSU and replacement Justin Wilcox left for the Cal head coaching job, Chryst stayed in-house.
I’m not going to question Leonhard’s aptitude or potential as a teacher, but ... this is all rather quick, isn’t it?
This feels like the ultimate “Screw it, we’re Wisconsin” move. And because of the experience elsewhere on the coaching staff and the experience littering the two-deep, it might work. But consider this a red flag.
Calling something a red flag is a lovely hedge. You’re not committing to saying something is a problem; you’re simply pointing it out just in case.
The Leonhard hire: Not a problem.
The No. 5 Badgers have allowed more than 17 points just once all season and head into Saturday’s game against No. 24 Michigan with the top-ranked defense in the country, according to Def. S&P+.
The Badgers are efficient. They prevent big plays. If you get the ball in the red zone, they’re probably holding you to a field goal. They are good against the run and tremendous against the pass. There is almost no discernible weakness, on paper.
It’s hard to look at Wisconsin’s full-season numbers and find a clear path to scoring. In instances like these, it’s sometimes helpful to focus on the rare failures.
In seven Big Ten games, the Badgers have allowed teams to score 20 times — 11 touchdowns and nine field goals. Let’s see if we can find any similarities in how teams went about putting points on the board.
Of these 20 scores, eight came after Wisconsin turnovers. Nebraska returned an interception for a touchdown, and Iowa returned two. Purdue, Maryland, and Northwestern each earned field goals after forcing turnovers in UW territory and going three-and-out.
UW quarterback Alex Hornibrook is having a decent year. He’s completing 64 percent of his passes and averaging 8.1 yards per attempt, including sacks. The Badgers rank 28th in Passing S&P+ and 19th in passing success rate, and for an offense so focused on and capable of running the football, that’s more than enough.
He can be baited into mistakes, however, as Bud Elliott and I discussed around the 55-minute mark of this week’s Podcast Ain’t Played Nobody.
Hornibrook has thrown 12 interceptions in 206 passes, a 5.8 percent interception rate that is more than twice what you would prefer. He also takes sacks on 6.5 percent of his attempts. He is confident and willing to step up and make tough passes. He just doesn’t always make those passes well.
The easiest path for a Michigan score is a short field; the Wolverines’ defense is young but excellent, ranking sixth in Def. S&P+ despite major 2016-to-2017 turnover. They are fourth in Passing S&P+ and first in passing success rate, and it would only take a couple of poor Hornibrook passes to change this game.
Of the 14 scoring drives in this sample that actually required an offense to move the ball, Wisconsin’s defense committed six third-down penalties to extend those drives. Most were pass interference penalties. There were a couple on second downs, too.
Wisconsin’s pass defense is insanely physical. The Badgers rank fifth in Adjusted Sack Rate and third in passing success rate. A whopping 46 percent of opponents’ incompletions are the result of a pass defensed (intercepted or broken up), the highest rate in the country. UW ranks first in both linebacker havoc rate (forced fumbles, tackles for loss, and passes defensed divided by total snaps) and defensive back havoc rate, as well.
The balance here is astounding. Eleven Badgers have at least 2.5 tackles for loss, 10 have at least 1.5 sacks, nine have taken part in at least three run stuffs (stops at or behind the line), and seven have defensed at least three passes — corner Nick Nelson is third in the country with 18.
This Badger D does not wait around for you to make a mistake; it forces them. But this physicality is also a dare to the officials, a “You’re not going to call pass interference on every single pass, are you?” wager. That bet usually pays off, but sometimes it doesn’t.
Wisconsin averages just 5.9 penalties per game, 56th in the country and right at the national average. But there’s a pretty strong correlation between when these penalties occur and when opponents score points. There’s also a correlation between points and big third-down passes.
Michigan’s scoring has risen dramatically since Brandon Peters took over at quarterback three games ago. After averaging 17 points per game over the three preceding games, they’ve averaged 34 with Peters. But he’s not being asked to do a whole lot.
In wins over Rutgers, Minnesota, and Maryland, Peters’ average passing line was 9-of-15 for 108 yards. The run game has been key, and Peters’ job has been to avoid mistakes.
He’s made some pretty big passes, though. On third down with four or more yards to go, he’s 9-of-14 for 98 yards and no picks. Meanwhile, in this 14-drive scoring sample for Wisconsin opponents, passers are 9-of-15 for 124 yards on such downs. Peters is moving the chains, and he’ll be asked to do the same in Madison, especially since there’s one more commonality among these scoring drives: The run isn’t really an option.
During scoring drives, opponents have rushed 53 times in 140 plays, not including five sacks. Only seven of these rushes gained more than nine yards — six of those came when the opponent was down double digits and Wisconsin was in defend-the-pass mode — and 32 gained four or fewer.
Success against Wisconsin tends to come from a quarterback’s arm, not a running back’s legs.
Four times in these 14 drives, it took more than third-down conversions. Maryland converted a fourth-and-10, Northwestern converted a fourth-and-7 and a fourth-and-1, and Purdue converted a fourth-and-6.
In three of these four, the opponent was down by double digits and trying desperately to stay in the game. But despite Michigan’s play-it-safe ideal, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Jim Harbaugh to take some risks on fourth-and-short.
Opponents are getting no more than three good scoring chances per game against UW. You have to take advantage of each.
Risk of this nature would be out of Harbaugh’s character. The Wolverines have only attempted 11 fourth-down conversions in 10 games, 101st in the country. With a great defense at his disposal, Harbaugh is happy to punt or kick a field goal and live to fight another series. If his defense is stuffing Wisconsin and/or forcing a few turnovers, then that approach might be fine. If not, though? Might have to force the issue, whether it’s in your DNA or not.
Wisconsin is tremendous, but this might the worst possible time to play the Wolverines (S&P+ disagrees.)
It always feels like a cop-out to say that quarterback play is going to determine this game, but quarterback play is probably going to determine this game.
Michigan’s best path to an easy score or two comes from forcing Hornibrook mistakes. Sustained scoring drives will almost certainly require big passes from Peters.
Michigan’s recent offensive rebound has to give Wolverine fans hope here. It appears it’s a lot more difficult to play UM now than it was a month ago.
But this Wisconsin defense is mostly immovable, and the Wolverines might need picks and penalty flags to score the upset.
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