Michigan football vs Wisconsin: Three Badgers to Watch
Michigan football is taking on a tough Wisconsin team this week and here are three Badgers to watch out for.
Fresh off a 30-6 dismantling of Sparty in East Lansing, Wisconsin rolls into the Big House on Saturday to battle Michigan football for the first time since the Rich Rodriguez era.
Related Story: Michigan Football: Getting to know Wisconsin
The Badgers started the season by beating a third ranked LSU team that has since fired its coach, then–two weeks later–had enough trouble with a plucky Georgia State that Paul Chryst thought it prudent to pull his quarterback and insert a redshirt freshman, who then was at the helm for the aforementioned dismantling of MSU last week. It’s been a strange season so far, but they’ll enter the week as the eighth ranked team in the nation.
This game is going to feature a lot of Big Ten on Big Ten violence. Fullback dives and tight end releases will abound, wheel routes will be the exotic change of pace, 300 pound linemen will be downfield pancaking safeties, there’ll be three different jumbo packages for each team that aren’t limited to goal line situations, etc. Wisconsin has been able to outmuscle and outexecute opponents with styles similar to their own so far this season; they’ll have a harder time doing so on Saturday, but if the Fightin’ Cheese Curds can get these three players going, it’s going to be a very long day for Michigan football.
Alex Hornibrook
Hornibrook didn’t take a snap in the upset over LSU while Bart Houston did just enough to not lose, but Wisconsin clearly had their starter on a short leash: Hornibrook took over late during a dogfight with Georgia State and hasn’t looked back. Last week against Michigan State, Hornibrook managed the game well, completed a lot of short passes, and avoided mistakes save one bad read and throw that led to an interception.
It seems like Paul Chryst thinks that’s all he really needs from his quarterback given how strong the Wisconsin is in almost every other aspect of the game. That means if Hornibrook gets in a rhythm and starts throwing the ball downfield successfully, the Badgers are probably going to be damn near impossible to beat. Luckily, there isn’t much evidence he can actually do that.
He still finished the game with 16 completions on 26 attempts with a touchdown and an interception against an inexperienced but aggressive MSU defense. Redshirt freshmen are still freshmen, though, and Michigan has to take advantage of his inexperience and rattle Hornibrook early. Luckily, this is something Don Brown is rather good at.
Paul Chryst’s West Coast by way of Third Coast offense makes it easy for quarterbacks to dink and dunk their way to confidence, so breaking that groove is going to important. This is still, after all, only Hornibrook’s second career start. The more the defense can mess with the quarterback’s head, the more they can focus on the run, which is how you really strangle the Wisconsin offense.
Look for Peppers and McCray in the backfield early and a lot of stunting and shifting along the defensive line to throw Hornibrook off because as he demonstrated last week, once he gets comfortable he can step up in the pocket and make some really impressive throws. Also of note: this is the first left handed quarterback on the schedule, so we could see even more movement among the front four. If the southpaw weathers the storm, it could be a long day.
Vince Biegel
Wilton Speight and De’Veon Smith are going to see a lot of Biegel of Saturday. The senior linebacker is a load at 6’4, 249 lbs and has surprising speed; he’s going to cause problems in both the running and passing game. Biegel is probably the best of an outstanding LB corps, and people are taking note. From Pro Football Focus:
"OLB’s Vince Biegel and T.J. Watt created constant havoc in the Michigan State backfield while stuffing the stat sheet. Biegel had an astounding ten QB hurries and two QB hits to go along with a 76.9 run defense grade in a superb outing."
That’s disconcerting for an offensive line that has looked varying degrees of “eh” so far. “Big enough to stop the run at the line of scrimmage, quick enough to burst into the backfield” isn’t a scouting report you want to hear about your opponent.
Biegel is going to spend a lot of time around the line and unfortunately it’ll be on guys like Smith, Khaled Hill, etc to deal with him. The key is opening up just enough room for running backs to get to the second level and allowing for the tackles to put a hat on him (and Watt). If Smith and company can’t get anything going, it’ll make it easy for Biegel to freelance more and just generally make everyone’s day terrible. That’s what happened in the Michigan State game, and Sparty ended up with 27 carries for 75 yards while their quarterback threw three picks. Michigan’s offensive line is going to have to have a great day to get anything going on that side of the ball, which is worrisome.
Troy Fumagalli
Winning this game will probably mean completely shutting down Wisconsin’s offense. Michigan’s offense just isn’t going to put up a ton of points against the Badger defense. Shutting down the Wisky offense will start with Hornibrook, and taking away his safety valve at tight end will be crucial.
Fumagalli is averaging 12 yards a catch and plays an important role on third downs, where Hornibrook excels. The Wisconsin offense boasts two good downfield receivers in Jazz Peavy and Robert Wheelwright, but they will struggle to get separation against Jourdan Lewis and the rest of the secondary, Jeremy Clark’s injury and all.
Their rushing attack has been curiously un-Wisconsin like thus far this season, so the underneath passing game is going to be huge in this game.
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Fumagalli is a legit threat even though he’ll be catching six yard drags all game. That’s how the Badgers will get into a rhythm, if they do. We saw Colorado attack the middle of the field relentlessly with great success, so hopefully Don Brown has figured out that getting to the quarterback and bringing down a safety can prevent that.