With the news of Graham Mertz officially testing positive for COVID-19 and still awaiting Chase Wolf’s confirmation, I need a favor from my fellow Badger fans.
Chill out.
The season isn’t over. Our defense is full of young and veteran talent who didn’t give up a single point last week. I fully understand freaking out. However, a highly rated, redshirt freshman carving up a bad defense doesn’t make him amazing, yet.
Why are you doubting the Badger Football program?
The Wisconsin Badger football team hasn’t seen a losing season since 2001. We have had some of the best recruiting classes EVER come in recently. We churn out NFL talent yearly. So why are you freaking out?
You don’t appear in the most Big 10 championship games since the inception of the game by fluke.
Why Trust Danny Vanden Boom?
We don’t have much collegiate experience to go off of other than a 3 yard touchdown pass in the only pass of his career.
So let’s take it back to high school. In the middle of one of the greatest runs in high school football history, was Danny Vanden Boom. Kimberly, a Wisconsin high school football team, won 70 straight games dating from late 2012 to August 2018.
During the 13th longest streak of wins in the history of the COUNTRY, Danny Vanden Boom went a cool 28-0 as a starter. That includes back-to-back state championships at Camp Randall, no less.
In those 2 full seasons, Vanden Boom also completed 67% of his passes, 4665 yards, and 56 touchdowns with only five interceptions. He was a 3-star recruit for a reason. We are accustomed to 3-star quarterbacks or less leading our program to victory.
What to expect Saturday
While Mertz led a great Badger opener on Friday, you can expect something similar. Will DVB throw for 5 touchdowns? Probably not. You can expect a heavy dose of running and some nice safe throws to march down the field.
Despite the Badgers scoring 45 points, the running game wasn’t in full effect. The Badger backfield was a 3-headed committee led by Nakia Watson with 19 carries. However, it was a seemingly bulked up Garrett Groshek who led the team with 70 yards on 13 attempts.
In general, the Wisconsin run game struggled noticeably. That being said, the Badgers still almost ran for 200 yards in total. They probably would’ve hit that mark if sacks didn’t count against rushing yards when counting stats in college football.
The offense will be in question against a not very good Nebraska defense and the defense will continue to flex its muscle against a Nebraska offense that managed 14 points in the 1st half and only three in the second half last weekend.
I’m going to trust and support DVB this Saturday and I implore you to do the same. Let him get confident against Nebraska and you’ll worry less about how we will face Purdue and Michigan.
On Wisconsin.
