Mike Lucas offers his reaction to Wisconsin's 31-17 loss to Northwestern.
"The preseason thinking was the offense had the ability to overcome a reasonable number of mistakes while carrying an inexperienced defense. But it hasn’t been the case diminishing the overall margin of error & exposing every flaw including special teams that haven’t been special"
"Picking off Clayton Thorson 3 times and holding him under 200 yards passing would normally bode well for the outcome. But B10’s worst rushing offense was able to grind out yardage (182, 3.7 per carry) for some rare balance wearing down a defense that was on the field for 79 plays"
"During 1stH sequence the Badgers started drives from their own 10, 16 & 1 yard line ending with 2 punts & fumble.Losing field position battle is another factor when the offense struggles especially with Jonathan Taylor neutralized & dearth of big plays (none more than 20 yards)"