Three takeaways from Wisconsin's 42-10 loss to Iowa

The Wisconsin Badgers played their ninth game of the 2024 season and sixth conference game on Saturday evening, losing to the Iowa Hawkeyes in Kinnick Stadium, 42-10.

Here are my three biggest takeaways from Wisconsin’s loss.

Iowa’s offense didn’t greet Wisconsin with any surprises.

The Hawkeyes have one of the best running backs in the country in Kaleb Johnson, and everybody knew the game revolved around him. But I’m not even sure Johnson broke a sweat. It was the easiest 135-yard, three-touchdown performance I’ve ever seen. His offensive line created holes that coach Kirk Ferentz could’ve ran through.

The Badgers stuck to their guns and mostly stayed in nickel, which Iowa took full advantage of.

“Obviously, at the second level, [Johnson’s] tough because he’s a big back and he’s got the speed to make you worried,” Luke Fickell said after the game.

“But I don’t think I would go much further than to say the guys up front were where the difference in the ball game was.”

The Hawkeye offense began with a more balanced offensive approach on the first two drives. But once they realized the Badgers didn’t pose much of a threat on the ground, it was curtains.

Their back-to-back touchdown drives in the second quarter lasted six and seven plays, respectively — consisting of one pass and 12 runs for an average of 9.7 yards per carry.

The dominance continued for the rest of the day. All in all, the Hawkeyes rushed 54 times for 329 yards, the most the Badgers have allowed since the 2012 Rose Bowl.

The Badgers aren’t deep enough up front, as Fickell admitted earlier this week.

“Maybe at the end of the game, we were a little bit worn down, defensively, and I think that, in the long run, cost us,” Fickell said on Monday.

However, they were overmatched immediately. We can call it what it is — a toughness issue.

This can’t even be compared to the Alabama or Penn State games. As programs, Iowa and Wisconsin are peers. They even entered Saturday’s game with the same record. Yet, against a good-not-great Hawkeye team, the Badgers were utterly embarrassed.

A rivalry game does a good job of showing where a team stands on the conference totem pole. Wisconsin can beat teams like Purdue and Northwestern, but has yet to threaten any team worth a damn.

“November is a time when you have to find out what you’re made of, and that’s not a good showing for what it is that we’re made of,” Fickell said.

“This was something that’s kinda your worst nightmare, to be kind of overtaken and manhandled and dominated, especially in the second half.”

The trench domination took place on both sides of the ball.

Iowa’s defensive front was as unrelenting as the offense’s. They completely shut down running back Tawee Walker, who finished with just 16 carries for 52 yards. The team as a whole ran just 28 times for 124 yards.

If the Hawkeyes couldn’t break through the offensive line, they made easy work of the perimeter blockers.

“We’ve gotta be able to loosen some people up. We’ve gotta be able to get the ball on the edge a little bit more. But we couldn’t do it tonight. We’ve gotta block on the perimeter a little bit better, so when we do get the ball to the edge, it’s not a one-yard gain or a two-yard gain,” Fickell said.

“But this is where Iowa is really good. They do a great job at creating and setting edges and making you work for everything. And obviously we didn’t work hard enough to get it done tonight.”

After Walker’s first few attempts were unsuccessful, offensive coordinator Phil Longo panicked and instantly abandoned the run. Of their first seventeen plays, Longo called 12 passes and only five runs. He put far too much pressure on quarterback Braedyn Locke, which he proved he wasn’t capable of handling.

But. in Locke’s defense, the offense couldn’t do anything right. The line couldn’t block, which shut down the running game, and the receivers weren’t giving Locke many breaks.

This comes back to coaching. It feels like a foregone conclusion that Longo’s days as coordinator are numbered. The offense has no sense of identity. They only ever look competent against bad defenses. When they get punched in the mouth, they immediately crumble.

“Everybody knows that Iowa’s gonna make it difficult to [run the ball]. You thought you had a good plan coming in, with the ability to create some seams and find ways to loosen them up a little bit, but we were not able to do that tonight,” Fickell said.

It was the type of performance that inspires true soul searching.

Whether or not bringing in an Air Raid coordinator was the right decision can be debated. But we know that Longo isn’t the right guy for the job.

When the run wasn’t working, Locke’s weaknesses became incredibly obvious. Too much was put on his shoulders for him to handle, and he collapsed beneath the weight.

Locke could simply never create any sense of rhythm. He didn’t complete more than two passes in a row until the end of the third quarter, leading up to their first touchdown when the score was 28-3.

He started out okay, leading a field goal drive to strike first blood.

But disaster soon struck. At the end of the first quarter, Locke dropped back and attempted to throw a 25-yard pass to receiver Quincy Burroughs, but didn’t see boundary cornerback Deshaun Lee, who jumped up for an easy interception.

This killed all of the Badgers’ momentum. And they couldn’t recover it at any point throughout the rest of the night.

After nine starts, Locke has shown us who he is.

He’s a quarterback who can look capable when his offensive line gives him time and the running game allows for effective play action, which can also be said about most quarterbacks in the FBS.

I don’t want to put all of the blame on Locke, because there are obvious issues at coordinator and receiver, but it’s clear he’s not the right quarterback for this specific period of Badger football.

Locke is simply not good enough to create wins by himself. He’s become a product of his environment.

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