The introduction of countless new coaches and unveiling of fresh schema couldn’t have operated in a much more perfect fashion as Wisconsin toppled UMass last week in thumping fashion, 45-0. But that was UMass, a program very much struggling in its new position among the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision.
Now Wisconsin will welcome a similar program in Tennessee Tech, a lower level school owning FCS criterion, but a team that scored 63 points just five days ago. The most obvious test appears to be on the defensive side of the ball, where the Badgers pitched their first shutout since September 2011.
The 63-point attack that Tennessee Tech posted on their opponent, fellow FCS school Cumberland, came at the hands of what head coach Gary Andersen calls a “true spread offense,” flanking players and plays to every possible corner of the field and creating as much space on the field as possible.
“They spread the field so they isolate people, they read people,” defensive coordinator Dave Aranda said following Wednesday’s practice. “They’ll read the defensive end where they give it or they pitch it. They’ll read an inside linebacker, to give the draw or to throw the pop pass behind him…They spread it out and use the whole field that way.
“It’s an efficient offense when you combine that read component with going fast.”
A lot of that Tennessee Tech effectiveness and speed boils down to Golden Eagle quarterback Darian Stone, a dual-threat passer who racked up four touchdowns between the air and on the ground last week.
Like many quarterbacks in the spread, the junior is the focal point of the Tennessee Tech offense, making the decisions on those reads laid out by Aranda. Stone had little difficulty making the correct reads against Cumberland, going 8-for-11 through the air and leading the Golden Eagles to a 35-point halftime lead. Surely he will find a more formidable defense at Camp Randall Saturday. That defense spent most of the week focusing on No. 5.
“He’s definitely a player that we have to watch,” redshirt sophomore safety Michael Caputo said. “He’s one of the threats they have that we definitely have to adjust our defense a little bit to.”
As Tennessee Tech spread the ball around the field to eight other ball carriers and six different receivers, the 6-foot, 180-pound quarterback is definitely the focal point of the Golden Eagle offense. He’s not just a concern known to the secondary.
“He can move really well,” senior Beau Allen said of Stone, known as No. 5 to the Wisconsin defense and replicated on the scout team by athletic freshman quarterback Connor Senger. “You’ve got to focus on him. He had some good runs and some good passes last week, so we have to.”
That makes Allen’s job as nose tackle more difficult, with the football many times moving away from him laterally. However, it heightens the importance of the four linebackers in Aranda’s 3-4 scheme.
There will be some expected shifting internally among the linebackers Saturday with junior Derek Landisch out with a right ankle injury, expected to be out two weeks or possibly more, according to Aranda.
The Landisch injury opens a space for redshirt senior linebacker Conor O’Neill, Landisch’s main competition for the starting position throughout fall camp. Behind O’Neill, Aranda named walk-on freshman Jack Cichy as the next guy to get reps this week to fill the void.
The Wisconsin linebacking corps was instrumental in the shutout of UMass as Chris Borland, Brendan Kelly and Ethan Armstrong were the top three Badger tacklers. The next three came from the UW secondary, also instrumental against the spread attack.
It was a secondary that entered the first game lacking in experience, making some of the most important plays of their career in maintaining the Wisconsin shutout. Safety Caputo and cornerbacks Peniel Jean and Sojourn Shelton – a trio that entered the game with a combined two starts – left Saturday’s game with four tackles apiece.
Likely the most impressive play came from the true freshman Shelton, who made a break near the sideline, leaping to his first career interception in his first career start and in his first collegiate game.
“He played very much contained,” Aranda said. “That’s always the concern when you have a freshman as they try to step outside of themselves… Sojourn didn’t do that, and that’s a credit to him.”
Much like the Wisconsin offense that put 45 points on the scoreboard, if the defense can play at a similar level against Tennessee Tech, the Badgers might find a similarly pleasing outcome Saturday afternoon. That doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done and improvements to make, even if the attractive matchup against Arizona State looms another week away. The biggest concern in prepping for Tennessee Tech this week was the special teams.
It’s what Allen said was the prime target point throughout the week and what Gary Andersen took away as the low point of the UMass game.
“If we can’t take care of the special teams and get it to where it needs to be, it will end up costing us games,” Andersen said during Monday’s press conference. “These kids can run on special teams and on offense and defense. We’d better watch that very closely and prepare the right way.”
