Tag: Film

Graham Mertz is in the nation’s bottom tier in a key offensive metric

Graham Mertz is in the nation’s bottom tier of a key offensive metric

Quarterback Expected Points Added, or EPA, is a metric that measures how well a team or players perform relative to expectation.

From the The33rdTeam.com:

For example, if a team starts a drive on the 50-yard line, its expected points to start the drive would be about 2.5. If the team ends the drive with a field goal, thus gaining 3 points, its EPA for that drive would be found by subtracting its expected points from how many points it actually gained, 3 – 2.5 or 0.5 EPA.

Say the Chiefs start with the ball first-and-10 from their own 25-yard line, where its expected points would be about 1.06. If Patrick Mahomes throws a 15-yard completion, making it first-and-10 on the KC 40-yard line, where the expected points is now 1.88, the EPA of that play would be 1.88 – 1.06 or 0.82. In other words, that completion increased the Chiefs’ expected points on that drive by just over three-fourths of a point.

The metric can both be positive and negative, as sacks and incompletions contribute negatively to the team and its expected points.

Graham Mertz has been prone to interceptions and tough incompletions this season, enough where Wisconsin struggled to score against every good defense its played.

His struggles have landed him in the nation’s bottom ten in Quarterback EPA, right alongside Indiana QB Michael Penix Jr, Clemson QB D.J. Uiagalelei and a host of quarterbacks on losing Group of Five teams.

This metric is not close to the end-all, be-all for quarterback play. It is just a piece of the puzzle when evaluating how a signal-caller performs. And yes, there are numerous factors that play in including offensive line play, down-and-distance scenarios and the strength of opposing defenses.

But this metric follows everyone’s thinking that Mertz has struggled quite a bit through five weeks this season.

Contact/Follow us @TheBadgersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin news, notes, opinion and analysis.

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Film room: What exactly will Wisconsin’s defense be up against on Saturday?

Film room: What exactly will Wisconsin’s defense be up against on Saturday?

Wisconsin’s game on Saturday might send the older football fan back to the days before the forward pass was considered normal.

The Badgers are set to face off against the Army Black Knights—one of the only teams that still run the old-school triple-option offense.

Army enters the contest with a 4-1 record on the season thanks to wins against Georgia State, Western Kentucky, UConn and Miami (Ohio). They do so scoring more than 34 points per game…but only throwing the ball 5-7 times.

The triple-option is a ground-based attack designed to catch defenders out of position and slowly and methodically march down the field.

So, here is what Wisconsin fans can expect to see on Saturday. It is a beautiful football attack that requires intense planning and discipline to stop.

The Army quarterback has three options, hence the term ‘triple-option.’ There’s the initial handoff to the halfback, an available toss or a quarterback run.

But Army also runs more traditional downhill run plays out of similar pre-snap looks in order to keep the defense off guard. The changes are minute, but they completely alter what defenders see from the offensive linemen and quarterback on the play.

Army does a great job of changing the tempo of the plays (sometimes the outside toss is thrown immediately) and changing how the offensive line executes its attack on the defense. They operate well when it’s a guessing game on defense, and when some of their options are so successful that they open up others.

Wisconsin should be well-equipped to stop the Army attack thanks to a dominant front seven, intelligent and athletic linebackers and a defensive coordinator in Jim Leonhard that has had this game on his mind for months.

But the question must be asked, how many forward passes will we see attempted on Saturday?

Army averages 6.6 per game, Wisconsin averages 28 (19.5 in its two victories).

My non-scientific over/under is 25. Make of that whatever you wish.

Contact/Follow us @TheBadgersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin news, notes, opinion and analysis.

Film room: Analyzing Graham Mertz’s performance against Eastern Michigan

What can we learn from Graham Mertz’s performance against Eastern Michigan?

All eyes are tuned to quarterback Graham Mertz when the Wisconsin Badgers are on the football field.

The offensive unit boasts a lethal rushing attack, good offensive line play (yes, I know it was bad Week 1) and a myriad of weapons on the outside. It seems like the only thing they need to become an explosive offense and one that can finish drives in the red zone is the progression of Mertz as a quarterback.

2021’s debut was a rough one for the signal-caller, as he was unable to finish key drives for the team, struggled to find ways to complete passes against the Penn State defense, missed big-time throws and had a few crucial turnovers.

But I’m not overreacting to his struggles in Week 1, as Penn State’s defense will prove to be one of the best the Badgers play this season and the unit was crushed by poor offensive line play.

Related: Big Ten football power rankings after Week 2: The mighty has fallen

Everyone can agree, though, that Mertz needs to show improvement moving forward. I laid out all last week why Eastern Michigan presented the perfect opportunity.

So, with the game in the rear view and Mertz’s full performance on film, what can we learn from how he looked in the Badgers’ 34-7 win?

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Final game grades, report card for Wisconsin vs. Penn State

Final game grades, report card for Wisconsin vs. Penn State

The Wisconsin Badgers dropped their season-opening contest against Penn State yesterday, as red-zone woes wasted a masterful performance from Jim Leonhard’s defense.

The loss sets Wisconsin back in the Big Ten West, as they saw division rival Iowa come away with a decisive victory over Indiana.

To the naked eye, Wisconsin played a pretty good game yesterday. The defense dominated up front, the running game was good enough and the Badgers traveled to the red zone all day long.

However, the game was largely decided by the Badgers only scoring 7 total points in 4 trips within the Penn State 10 yard line.

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Throughout the season, I’ll run through the film on my Twitter account early in the week, then grade out each position group and player.

Here’s my final game grades and full report card for Wisconsin vs. Penn State:

Film room: How can Wisconsin stop Penn State’s offensive attack?

@benzkenney went through some of Penn State’s 2020 film to see what the Badger defense will need to do against Sean Clifford & the PSU offense:

It’s a Monday afternoon during the first Wisconsin football game week of the year.

So what does that mean? It’s time to open the film on Wisconsin’s opponent: the Penn State Nittany Lions.

James Franklin’s team went 4-5 last season, closing the year with a 4-game winning streak after dropping their first five games.

Much of their struggles were due to inconsistent play from QB Sean Clifford that was littered with turnovers, as well as an extremely inexperienced running back room.

Penn State relies on the layers of their ground game to attack opposing defenses. Many of their looks can go to a zone run up the middle, a Clifford read-option, a play-action pass or even a straight quarterback draw.

It’ll be Clifford’s legs that will present a tough test for the Badger defense. He ran for 335 yards and 3 touchdowns last season and 402 yards the year before that.

In order to stop the Nittany Lion offensive attack, the focus must be on containing Clifford in the pocket, stopping their initial rushing attack and maintaining discipline against their multi-faceted looks.

Because when Clifford was forced to do it all with his arm, we saw some pretty poor throws come as a result. Throwing on the run and escaping the pocket was a real strength, it was the drop-back, on-time pass that the Penn State quarterback struggled with at times.

Scenario one above is where Wisconsin will need to excel: keeping Clifford in the pocket and contending with their threats (Jahan Dotson, Parker Washington) on the outside.

Scenario two is where they will find trouble, as there were countless examples of Clifford rolling and delivering strikes.

Stopping the Penn State attack will come down to everybody excelling at their job: Keeanu Benton and the defensive ends need to disrupt the line of scrimmage, Leo Chenal and Jack Sanborn need to take away Penn State’s options and the secondary will need to stick with the Nittany Lions talented wide receivers.

In my opinion, the game will likely need to be won on the offensive side of the football by Graham Mertz and the ground game. But once Jim Leonhard’s defense takes the field, they’ll need to be ready to stop every wrinkle Penn State throws at them.

Contact/Follow us @TheBadgersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin news, notes, opinion and analysis.

 

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Documentary in the works on Reggie Bush, USC Trojans recruiting scandal

Documentary in the works on Reggie Bush, USC Trojans recruiting scandal

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The newly rung-in name, image, and likeness era has opened all sorts of avenues for college athletes, ranging from sponsorships to fundraising opportunities and the freedom to sing and play the guitar for a few hours. And for former players like USC Trojans icon Reggie Bush, it’s an opportunity to clear the air.

Bush was forcibly divorced from the University of Southern California not long after the New Orleans Saints picked him second overall in the 2006 NFL draft, making him the very first selection of the Sean Payton era. An NCAA investigation found that Bush’s family accepted improper recruiting benefits — leading to the forfeiture of his Heisman Trophy and ostracization from the college football world.

Things are changing, though. Bush was eventually allowed to return to USC’s campus. There’s a public outcry to return the trophy he won and recognize his accomplishments with the Trojans. And now a documentary is in the works to share his perspective on those events.

Directed by Kirk Fraser (“ESPN’s 30 for 30: Without Bias”) in partnership with Bush and Believe Entertainment Group, the upcoming film is a deep dive into Bush’s tumultuous experience as a college athlete and sports pariah. The production company won an Academy Award in 2018 for “Dear Basketball,” written and narrated by the late Kobe Bryant on the eve of his retirement from the NBA.

They’re taking a similarly thoughtful approach to telling Bush’s story. He’s credited as an executive producer, with conversations on the project going on for nearly a year already.

“After all these years I’m finally ready to tell my story, I hope this can help drive change with the next generation of student athletes,” Bush said in a press release. “We’re making some progress, but there’s still a long way to go.”

It’ll be fascinating to have this depth of access to such a complicated situation and individual, especially if any episodes from Bush’s time in New Orleans come to light — like Sean Payton dropping an F-bomb on Bush’s marketing agent when they tried to talk him out of not drafting the star prospect. Stay tuned for updates on a release date.

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D’Mitrik Trice fouled out in the final minutes against Iowa, but should he have?

The Wisconsin Badgers saw the final minute of their game against the Iowa Hawkeyes get away from them thanks in large part to numerous

*Deep breath*

The Wisconsin Badgers saw the final minute of their game against the Iowa Hawkeyes get away from them thanks in large part to numerous questionable calls and no-calls from the Big Ten officiating crew.

It’s not just me saying this, as Badger Head Coach Greg Gard went off in his postgame press conference on the officiating and on how the league sees and judges Brad Davison.

The Davison situation aside, arguably the most significant string of foul calls were the final two on Wisconsin guard D’Mitrik Trice that put him on the bench for the end of the game. Not only is Trice the team’s most important late-game player, he may be the only one that can singlehandedly close a basketball game.

So with 40 seconds left Trice fouled out. The score at that point was 71-71. After that? Iowa closed the game on a 6-2 run and handed Wisconsin their seventh-straight loss against a ranked opponent.

Related: The Twitter world reacts to Wisconsin basketball’s controversial loss to Iowa

One of the points of Gard’s postgame press conference was to put emphasis on the joke that replay reviews have become in the sport.

Well, we’re going to the replay booth for the late fouls on Trice and seeing if he really should have fouled out of the game.

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Film Room: What should we expect to see from the 2021 Wisconsin Badger offense?

The Wisconsin Badgers’ offensive struggles during the second half of the 2020 season were well-documented, the team averaging 10 points

The Wisconsin Badgers’ offensive struggles during the second half of the 2020 season were well-documented.

The team started the season scoring more than 40 points in two straight games but went through the meat of their schedule averaging only 10 points-per-game and failing to score in the double digits three times.

There were numerous factors at play, including the Badgers going up against some of the conference’s top defenses, the team experiencing a pause due to a COVID-19 outbreak and the unit seeing its wide receiving core fail to stay healthy.

Related: Wisconsin football’s returning production compared to the rest of the Big Ten

With a full offseason, more experience for the underclassmen and a normal 2021 schedule, this is an offense that is poised to bounce back in a big way.

Here’s why.

First, they have a man under center in Graham Mertz who experienced some growing pains as a redshirt freshman. There were piles of positive signs, though, and the combination of a full offseason, more reps and a healthy team should help those signs become the everyday reality.

When he’s rolling you see tremendous arm talent, poise in the pocket, quiet feet and a control of the game. There were struggles (against Indiana and against Iowa) but for a talented young player like him, the positives are what to focus on moving into next year.

Along with Mertz developing, what Badger fans should get the most excited about is a healthy myriad of weapons allowing Paul Chryst’s creativity to create a dominant offensive force.

This is what happens when the unit is healthy. Chryst runs a WR in motion (Kendric Pryor, Danny Davis or Chimere Dike), uses the motion to catch the attention of the opposing linebackers, runs a play-action fake to Jalen Berger and lets Jake Ferguson leak out and run free in open space.

When the team is running on all cylinders there’s the threat of a WR taking the handoff and turning the corner, Berger taking the handoff and bursting through the line, Ferguson (as you see above) catching the pass on a bootleg AND the ball going to crossing wide receivers down the field.

In the past at times the Badgers haven’t had the personnel to display this look and present every wrinkle. In 2021 when the team is healthy, look out.

This is what a similar looks like with Pryor running free down the field.

Yes, that’s Mertz delivering a dime on the run into tight coverage. When he gains experience and begins to take the field already in rhythm, these are the offensive plays we will see.

So, what should we expect to see from the 2021 Wisconsin Badger offense?

If health works out, the potential for a complex, talented and explosive unit. There will be talent and experience at wide receiver at tight end, a budding young star at running back, a talented man under center, impressive youngsters joining the group and a play-caller that knows how to move an offense up and down the field.

For good measure, there’s an athlete at fullback too.

When the 2021 season in the books, 2020 will look like the outlier in Wisconsin’s run of consistent success.

For more 2021 season preview:

Contact/Follow us @TheBadgersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin news, notes, opinion and analysis.

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How did Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes prepare for Browns during the bye week?

Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes explained how he got a head start on preparations for the Browns during the bye week.

Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes is locked in for the playoffs.

This is now his third time that Mahomes has made the NFL’s divisional round of the playoffs as a starter in the past three seasons. He’s taking things up a notch knowing that it’s win or go home time for him and his teammates. Travis Kelce even revealed that Mahomes got a head start on preparation for the Cleveland Browns during the course of the Chiefs’ bye week.

“You can tell that he’s been doing his homework for the past week and a half,” Kelce said of Mahomes on Wednesday. “Just talking to him, him understanding what every single team that we could possibly face is doing defensively. Sure enough, as soon as we found out on Sunday who we were playing, he was right there and had a whole notebook ready for the Cleveland Browns. I think right now we’re in the process of figuring out the gameplan and I think like I said, what Pat does best is communicating exactly what he’s seeing and how he feels we need to attack the defense. All those conversations are extremely relevant toward the game.” 

So how did Mahomes create a whole notebook worth of notes and begin preparing for the Browns prior to knowing they’d be the divisional round opponent for Kansas City? It was all part of his bye week process.

“Yeah, I mean, right when the bye week started and we knew who seeds were for the 7, 6, 5, 4 — all those seeds that we could possibly play — I took a day where I watched about four or five games of each team,” Mahomes explained. “Just trying to get a general feel of what the defense is presenting and what offenses are doing to try and attack them, from different teams and different offenses. So I had a days worth of film on the Browns, so whenever we found that out I was able to look back at that and look at my notes and try to see how it presents to us.” 

Many expected the Chiefs to place greater emphasis during the bye week on the three teams they hadn’t yet played this season. One of those teams, of course, was Cleveland. However, the Browns and Chiefs did share four common opponents this season — The Ravens, Raiders, Texans and Jets. Mahomes revealed that some of those opponents were part of his film study. He also revealed the types of things that he was looking for in the film.

“They definitely were,” Mahomes said. “You see those different offenses and they do a lot of similar things that we do. Then I try to look at offenses like the Texans and stuff like that, that do a lot of similar types of stuff that we do as well as Philly and all these other teams. If you try to take away from the formations that they’re in that are similar to ours, even though we do different things out of those formations, you can kind of see where their defense is at and how they’re combatting that. Then you know they’re going to make adjustments and we’re going to have to be able to make adjustments during the game.”

While Mahomes did get a bit of a head start on his preparation, this is really nothing new or different from what he’s been doing all season long. He claims the only thing that changes this week for the team in terms of their preparation is their intensity.

“I think you just take your intensity up a level,” Mahomes said. “I mean it’s still the same preparation, you just maybe try to dive deeper into the film study, dive deeper into the breakdowns and the different ways you can go out there and have success against a defense. But just to take it to another level is the biggest thing.”

During the ensuing week of practice, they’ll put that raised intensity level to the test as they continue to work on ways to attack the Browns’ defense.

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5 things Notre Dame fans will like about QB Jack Coan

Former Wisconsin Badger quarterback Jack Coan is transferring to Notre Dame after missing the 2020 season with an injury. Fighting Irish…

Former Wisconsin Badger quarterback Jack Coan entered the 2020 season with high expectations after an impressive showing in 2019—starting the year on the watch list for the Maxwell Award, Manning Award, Davey O’Brien Award and Unitas Golden Arm Award.

Then, as Badger fans know too well, he broke his foot in practice and ended up missing the year, giving way to redshirt freshman Graham Mertz to take over under center.

Related: A way-too-early look at the 2021 Wisconsin football schedule

A transfer was all-but-inevitable at that point with Mertz set to lead the team under center for years to come. What I personally hoped at that point was for Coan to leave the Big Ten and not be a thorn in the Badgers’ side all season.

Well, I got what I wished but also didn’t, as Coan announced yesterday that he is headed to Notre Dame—a team that the Badgers will face in September.

With the Fighting Irish faithful not totally sure what they’re getting in Coan, I thought I’d put together five things Notre Dame fans will grow to like about their new quarterback.