What Wisconsin can learn from Oklahoma

Wisconsin looks at Oklahoma before the College Football Playoff

As the four teams who qualified for the College Football Playoff begin to settle in for the actual playoff semifinals on Saturday, BadgersWire thought it would be interesting to examine what the Wisconsin Badgers could learn from each of the teams in the playoff, starting with the Oklahoma Sooners. 

This isn’t to say that Wisconsin isn’t capable of doing things on its own, but it’s always worth looking at the most successful teams in the nation and wondering what you can do as a team to emulate that success. There’s no denying that Oklahoma has been thriving under head coach Lincoln Riley, who took the team from frequent Big 12 contender to frequent national contender. 

One of the biggest things Wisconsin could do to learn from Oklahoma is to examine the way the Sooners complement their rush attack with a creative and open passing game. There’s no denying that Wisconsin knows how to run the football. Anyone suggesting the Badgers need work in this area is probably not paying attention. Since 1999, Wisconsin has won the Doak Walker Award a total of five times — Ron Dayne (1999), Montee Ball (2012), Melvin Gordon (‘14), and Jonathan Taylor (‘18 & ‘19) — no other school has won it more than twice. 

But try to find a single year when a Wisconsin quarterback has been as proficient and remarkable as one of the running backs. Oklahoma also used to pound the rock relentlessly to beat opposing teams, but once Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley began opening things up for their quarterbacks as well, it was only then that the team began to find the success that had once eluded it. The Badgers have only one Maxwell Award winner in school history. With Paul Chryst being a former quarterback, it’s incumbent upon him to begin to open things up for their quarterbacks. 

In the modern era of football, a quarterback passing for only 17 touchdowns in an entire 14-game season is an example of an offense that could use an upgrade. That’s where Jack Coan and Wisconsin sit in 2019. Despite all the success the Badgers have had this year, imagine how much more successful they could have been if their quarterback was lighting up the field as much as their running backs.