Wisconsin football coach Gary Andersen spoke with the media Tuesday morning on the Big Ten's weekly coaches teleconference, ahead of the Badgers' game against Illinois on Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium.
Andersen recapped Wisconsin's 20-14 loss to Northwestern, discussed the team's tackling issues on defense, addressed his decision to use two quarterbacks moving forward and spoke about what the Badgers need to do to perform better overall. In all, Andersen provided a blunt assessment of his team's failures against the Wildcats.
Here is the full transcript of Andersen's conference call:
Andersen: Start with Melvin Gordon. Unbelievable game again. He's playing at a very high level. Really on offense gave us an opportunity to stay in the game last week at Northwestern and gave us some opportunities to be right there in the fourth quarter. So he had another tremendous game and continues to do so. We expect him to continue down those roads and move forward.
It was a tough loss. Northwestern played well and they deserved to win the game and obviously they did win the game. We're moving onward to Illinois, looking forward to the preparation. Started yesterday and looking forward to practice.
Question: There are 10 teams in the Big Ten averaging at least 26 points a game. The perception is offenses are in charge. Would you agree with that?
Andersen: My background probably wouldn't allow me to agree with that. There's some very talented offenses in our conference and throughout the country. As you continually see the shift with athleticism on the offensive side of the ball, it's tough to defend people. It'll shift back and forth I think year in and year out.
There's a lot of good offenses. Not just in our league, but throughout the country. We're looking forward to scoring more points ourselves as we move forward.
Question: It looked like guys were in position to tackle against Northwestern. When you looked at the tape, what did you see in the tackling issues?
Andersen: Fifteen missed tackles. That's what we came up with as a staff. That's not good. Credit goes where credit's due. They did a nice job of bouncing off blocks. I thought their running backs ran hard and did some good things. But 15 missed tackles with four turnovers, your chances of winning the football game are probably less than five percent.
Question: Were there some fundamental issues, maybe guys not wrapping up that led to the missed tackles?
Andersen: I think it was the positioning. A lot goes into tackling. If you miss 15 tackles, there's going to be some fundamental flaws. If you miss 15 tackles, there's some young men that are approaching a tackle in an abnormal position. You've got to get the kid down on the ground. The running back pulls through, a couple receivers pulled through some tackles on us. So it would be a combination.
Question: Do you think playing two quarterbacks can help relieve pressure on each guy?
Andersen: Well, that's kind of the plan right now. What we've got to do is move forward with the quarterback spot and run the offense that we run with both of the quarterbacks but also use the strengths of both young men, and that is the goal from the quarterback spot.
The key to the quarterback spot right now is the offense functioning as an offense. So much of our issues last week gets highlighted, gets pinpointed on quarterbacks with the issues with the four picks. If you look back at those four picks and you break it down one by one, I think anybody can see that there's a lot more going into those picks than there is just the quarterback making a poor decision or making a bad throw.
Question: Do you want both quarterbacks on board with the concept of sharing the role, or does it not matter?
Andersen: I think they are very much on board after communicating with them. I communicated with them after the game. Coach (Andy) Ludwig will as we go through this week.
Yesterday in practice they both had a very good day and moving around practice well. I think they both see themselves -- I know they both see themselves -- as competitors, see themselves as starters. Do they want to take every snap? Absolutely. Are they going to adjust to the situation right now and continue to do that? Yes, they'll do that and they'll handle it well.
We will see. If one takes it away and runs with it, then he will become the starting quarterback. The other guy will become two. But right now, it's 1A and 1B.
Question: It seems like there are great games in the run game, but what do you see from your offensive line in the pass protection?
Andersen: It obviously struggled last week in pass protection. Again, credit goes to Northwestern for putting some pressure on the quarterback. But I would say this: If I evaluated our first five games and sat down and said, "Have we improved in pass protection from a year ago?" I would say absolutely yes. I'm excited about that. It's a good thing.
We need to protect the quarterback. The quarterback needs to make sure that he gets through his reads. The wide receivers need to make sure they understand when they're going to break off their routes. If there is pressure coming, how to adjust to the pressure within the routes so the offense can function at a high level.
Many times, pressure on quarterbacks is not just because an offensive lineman gets beat. It goes much deeper than that on the technical side of football. A functioning offense, I think, will allow us to continue to improve the throw game. It'll help the protection, it'll help the quarterbacks make throws, it'll help the wide receivers make catches.
Question: How has center Dan Voltz handled having two quarterbacks?
Andersen: I think Dan's played well. He's snapping the ball to both of them. Last game we were pretty clean. We were absolutely 100 percent in that issue, which was good to see as far as snaps being handled the correct way and cleanly through the game. It was a little bit of a wet game. It wasn't pouring. There was some moisture out there, and we handled that well. Danny's commanded the offense well. I think he's playing pretty good as an offensive center for us and taking every snap.
Question: What do you have to work on to get ready for Illinois?
Andersen: You got about an hour? We can sit down and talk about it. We've got a lot of things to work on. If I just hit the key points for you, we were minus-four in the turnover situation. It's hard to be a good football team, let alone a great football team, if you're minus-four on the season. We were at zero before we walked into the Northwestern game. Now we're minus-four. So that'll give you an idea of where we sit there in the last game. Going minus-four, you're not going to win a game. Not very often you have an opportunity to get a victory with minus-four in the turnover category.
Third downs need to continue to improve. Being a function offense. I'm going to continue to say it. I've said it 50 times this week, and I'll continue to say it: We need to become functional as an offense. When I say that, our consistency needs to improve. We need to have some balance to us, and we need to make plays at opportunistic times.
And on defense, last week we need to tackle better, No. 1. And No. 2, there were two or three opportunities in that game we had fourth down that they went for that they got. We should have made that play. I need to coach them better in that situation. On the third-down play at the end of the game when they ran the power pass to the flat, we had an opportunity to make that play. We did not make that play.
We need to coach them better. I'm not putting it on the kids. I'm putting it on myself.
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