Wisconsin’s offense looked like it had found something with freshman quarterback Ryan Hopkins, then Maryland ripped the whole thing back open in a 24-21 Badgers loss.
The collapse didn’t come out of nowhere. After a week in which Hopkins was allowed to stretch the field and throw with confidence, Wisconsin slid right back into the same old mess. The game plan turned cautious, predictable and cramped, and offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes took the brunt of the blame.
Hopkins finished with just 72 passing yards and averaged 3.5 yards per completion. Maryland’s pressure never let up, as Hopkins was hit four times and lost three fumbles on those plays. Instead of leaning into the freshman’s strengths, Wisconsin drifted back to the short, stagnant offense that had already frustrated everyone watching.
That meant the screen-heavy, dink-and-dunk approach returned. It also meant designed runs on obvious passing downs and a refusal to trust the ground game when it needed to do the dirty work.
On an early fourth down, Grimes tried a misdirection fullback dive to the outside rather than simply pounding ahead. The decision fit the broader pattern: too much fiddling, not enough force.
Bryan Jackson was another example of the disconnect. He ran the ball only four times, even though he had shown himself to be an elite power back.
Abu Sama III got just two carries. Darrion Dupree led the team in rushing attempts, but even he managed only 14 carries for 57 yards.
The backs were shuffled in and out, but Wisconsin never committed to them in a way that let the offense settle in.
That lack of commitment kept the Badgers from building any rhythm. From the opening snaps to the final whistle, the offense looked out of sync, and the biggest issues landed on the shoulders of the true freshman quarterback trying to operate inside a system that kept shrinking around him.
Grimes appeared to overthink the learning curve with Hopkins, as if protecting him from mistakes mattered more than letting him play through them. At times, it felt like the ball was being taken out of his hands before he had a chance to do anything with it.
Hopkins still flashed late. In the second half, he made several impressive plays that nearly gave Wisconsin a path to steal the game. But the structure around him made that climb too steep.
After this one, the case against Grimes is hard to ignore. And with the offense again stuck in the mud, the pressure on Luke Fickell only grows louder.
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Luke Fickell is now left to answer the same uncomfortable question in a different form: how does this keep happening? Wisconsins issues were on display again, from breakdowns in the secondary to a critical strip sack late in the game that helped seal the collapse. At this point, the concern is no longer just one bad afternoon, but what the seasons repeated failures say about where the Badgers are headed under Fickell. [Read more 🡒]