Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag
Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag is a podcast/radio show aiming at bringing you Wisconsin sports news and opinions! Find the show Wednesdays from 5-7 pm on Sports radio 92.3 WOSQ or here next day!
Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag
Dec 3 Hour 1: Badgers MBB and Football, Packers
This is Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trade. Your place for all things Wisconsin Sports. Now, your host, Trage.
SPEAKER_02:How are we doing, everybody? And welcome into Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trage. I'm your host, Trade, as we come back here for the December 3rd edition of the show here. I hope you guys are enjoying your Wednesday so far. I hope you guys enjoyed your weekend, your Thanksgiving weekend there. It was a fantastic Thanksgiving for myself there. The turkey, I told you guys I was making that turkey on the Traeger. Fantastic. It ended up fantastic there. So that was sigh of relief. Sigh relief there with that turkey. And then a huge sigh of relief. The Packers with a massive, massive win against the Detroit Lions there on Thanksgiving. That was awesome. So we're going to get into that here on the show today. The Bears got the win against the Eagles on Black Friday. We got to talk about that because now the NFC North is a lot more enticing. It is a lot more enticing now that we are seeing the Bears. They picked up a win against a good, a good team. The Eagles dysfunctional. So it's still some question marks, but the Bears looked good. So we're going to dive into that here on the show today. Umber's going to be stopping by here. We're going to have some Packer talk here. Probably end of hour number one, working into hour number two. We're going to talk about that. And then we have a little bit of brewer's talk to get to here later on the show. Hopefully we get to the brewers. We have a little bit of brewer's talk. If we get to it today, we get to it. If we don't, we'll talk about next week here on the show. So we got that. Badger basketball. The trip to San Diego was uh not a failure, but that game two against TCU, that was ugly. And it's left some questions again. So we're going to talk about that here tonight here on the show. So we got that talk about badger football, an ugly performance. An ugly performance. That's all I'm going to say. An ugly performance against Minnesota. And it left, it left a lot of questions heading into the offseason. So Christian, Christian's going to stop by next. We're going to hit our first break. We're going to come back. And then Christian's going to hop on. We're going to talk about badger football because there's a lot, a lot of question marks that came off of that game. Especially the big one. Did all that progress that Luke Fickle and this team made going into that game? Did it all get kind of wiped out? So we got that talk about. If my voice starts to go today, if my voice starts to go, I've been dealing. I don't even know. It's not really a cold. It's just my voice. Then I had a headache going on, but it's just been mainly the voice trying to keep that cleared out. So if it starts to go a little bit, if it sounds a little scratchy, that's why. It's been a heck, it's it's extremely hard to try and clear it out to talk. So hopefully, hopefully it stays clear for the entire show here. So we got that coming up. Kyle's gonna be stopping by. We got some NFL talk to get to with him, power rankings, NFL talk complete. We got all kinds of stuff to get into there, some college football talk there, and then we got some Bucks talk to get to. Giannis is back, Kevin Porter's back. You know what that means. We have two editions back. We gotta add two new guys to the show. The guys from Wisco Fanatics are gonna be stopping by. They're gonna become the new, what do they call it? The Bucks correspondents for the show. So they're gonna be stopping by here and they're gonna be coming on week by week here to talk Bucks. And this Bucks team uh has of late here. It's been a struggle. Hopefully, Giannis and Kevin Porter being back, that's gonna add a little bit and it's gonna make it a little bit better uh moving forward here. So we got some Bucks talk to get to here later on in the show. But I wanted to get something off top here. Just uh a little a mention of something that happened over the weekend there. So uh the Mulm family, a lot of people around the area probably heard about this, but the Mulm family there, residents of Loyal, they uh they had a devastating house fire over this, over this Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving, but over this Thanksgiving weekend there. They had it on Thanksgiving Day. And luckily, thank, thank the Lord, everybody made it out safely. They have young kids there. Um, everybody made it out safely, but they lost everything. Everything's gone. Everything's it's it was it it was it's terrible. It really is. Like when I heard about it, I said, well, I honestly said right away, I was like, what can I do? What can I do? Right. So I contacted the hardware store because the hardware store, so the hardware store in Loyal, they're foremans in Loyal, and then the St. Anthony's Church, and then also the Suite Retreats, they are taking donations right now. They're taking donations, you can donate anything from pots and pans to uh clothing, whatever you have, whatever you have that you can donate, get it in there to Foremans, get it to Suite Retreats, get it to St. Anthony's, help any way that you can because this this is, I mean, we're talking about a family with three young children. It's we're getting closer to the holidays now, and this is just a terrible, terrible thing that happened. And nothing anybody could do, nothing anybody could do. It's just one of those things, it's it's it sucks. And anything that we can do to help here on the show, we're gonna do it. And I'm asking that anybody out there, if you have the capability to donate in any way that you can, I would love for you guys to do it. So, and if you need help finding any of those ways to donate, definitely hit me up. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914. You can hit me up, text line there. I can give you um uh the address or anything like that where you can mail things if you wanted to, ship things to some of these stores, or if you need addresses to just maybe even drive there, drop it off yourself. Make sure you guys are doing what you can because this, I mean, it's it's uh it sucks. It really does. And hopefully we can do everything that we can as a community to help them out here and help them move forward here because, and like I said, thank the Lord, everybody in the family was safe and that they have somewhere safe to go right now, but they definitely could use the help. So make sure you guys are if you can donate, stop in there at Foreman's or Suite Retreats or St. Anthony's and drop off any kind of donation items that you can. That is definitely needed right now. So we have a whole boatload of things to dive into tonight here. Christian's gonna be stopping by next. We're gonna talk some badging football when we come back here from the break. Wisconsin Sports on the Go Trade is just getting rolling. We'll be back back in to Wisconsin. I'm your host, Trage, as we come back here on this Wednesday. And hey, this next segment here is brought to you by our friends down there at Casa M. Spice, the low sodium, clean label, no fillers, no MSG. This stuff is fantastic, Christian. The turkey I said off top of the show, it went off without a hit. I mean, it was fantastic, it was great. I used that Casa M. Spice on there, the pecking order, the chain reaction, infused it in there with my injector and a little bit of broth. Oh, it was fantastic. Put it on the smoker. Came off. Thanksgiving came off without a hitch. It was awesome. It was fantastic. Thanks to our friends down there at Casa Am Spice. Make sure you guys are checking them out there. Facebook, Twitter, wherever you can find them, Casa M. Spice, you can find their website. You can also find them on there at all the Foremance hardwares, all the Ace hardwares. They're in there. Check them out, grab some Casa M. Spice for yourself. So, Christian, how yeah, hopefully, hopefully you're doing better than I am because my voice sounds like crap right now. How are you doing on this Wednesday?
SPEAKER_01:I'm good. We're uh we're back, we're ready, and it's uh almost time for national signing day, man. Things are busy.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, it is it's ex well, it's exciting and then nerve-wracking because it's like, well, who's gonna be here? How are they gonna scramble to fill a position? This and that. I'm over here drinking my dirty tea water. I totally I forgot the honey. I said it, Christian. I forgot he's like, you load it up with honey, right? I'm like, that's why it tastes like a putting miracle grow inside of a thing of hot water and chucked it on the stove. That's what I got right now. Hopefully, hopefully, I keeps my voice clear for well, somewhat clear. It ain't gonna clear out, I can tell you that much. So, so Christian, we got to get to our Casa M Spice bold players of the week from this last week here. And I gotta go with our guy over there, Dontavian Wicks. He was absolutely fantastic for the Packers in that win over the Lions on Thanksgiving. I honestly, if you would have said that Dontavian Wicks was gonna be, he was gonna have the game ceiling catch. And the way that it happened, where he had to leap up, go get it with a guy right there, I'd have told you you were crazy. I would have told you you were crazy. Two touchdowns in the game, six receptions, 94 yards. He was nothing short of fantastic. It was the Don Tavian Wicks game, and you love that because in 2023, when the Packers were rolling, it seemed like it was a different receiver every week. This was Don Tavian Wicks week. Christian Watson had a good game too, but this was Wicks' week. Maybe next week we're gonna see somebody else. But that that's the Green Bay Packers that we were we were missing. We were loving. Wicks, hopefully, this is a good sign to come because the drop passes have been a nervous, you know, nervous thing with him with drop passes. A lot better in this game here. Loved what I saw to Don Tavian Wicks. So, Christian, who do you got for me for your awesome spice bolt player of the week?
SPEAKER_01:Uh, I know we talked about black hole, but I think I'm gonna switch. I'm gonna go with Nick Boyd from the game before in the Providence game. Dropping 36 points. Oh, yeah. Seven rebounds, seven assists, like, and then a huge blow. And I know they went on to lose to TCU the next game, and he didn't do anything. But give me Nick Boyd. That was a crazy performance. Went 11 of 16. Shot almost 70% from the field.
SPEAKER_02:When he's feeling it, he's feeling it. But when he's not, he needs to learn how there's a safety on that trigger. That's what he needs to learn. And yeah, so yeah, that Nick Boyd, we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about that later on or in the next segment when we're talking a little badger hoops. But there's those two together, and there's yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff to dive into with Badgerman's hoop. But I would agree he was fantastic in that game there against uh against Providence there. So we got to get to our badger football because I mean, I just gotta be honest with you. That was the worst possible way the season could have ended. That was the worst. I I didn't think, you know, the way that the season was trending, I didn't think that there was, you know, I thought it was gonna end terrible no matter what, but you went two of three against three ranked opponents, Washington, and then you lose to Indiana, which was kind of just expected, but you played well, and then you played Illinois and you beat them, and you're like, wow, they have a chance to win another one against Minnesota to wrap up the year. All the momentum is in their favor, heading into it, and then nothing. It was ugly. I mean, Christian, is there any other word to use except for wow, that was ugly?
SPEAKER_01:I don't think so. Just extremely disappointing. I mean, like thinking about the last four games, you know, and just looking at that, I figured, man, that Minnesota game would have been the most likely one they would have won. Yes, you know, I mean, even though it was on the road, but like whatever. They've won on the road before in Minnesota, so it's not like it's impossible to do. But I didn't think they were gonna obviously beat Indiana. I didn't think they were gonna beat Washington. I didn't think they had much of a chance to beat Illinois. But I mean, I think all three of those games they played pretty dang well, and then just laid a big stinker in the last game of the year, the one that most fans probably would have been like, this is the most important of the four. Right, right.
SPEAKER_02:Even before that, Oregon lost 21 to 7 at Oregon. I mean, they they were everything was trending up, and then it just fell flat on its face once again, and it just feels like it's the trend. It really does. It feels like it's the trend of Luke Fickle is you get this hope and then you lose it. And we had this last season. They went through a pretty good stretch last season there, and they kind of just fell apart towards the end. I was just trying to look back there to see what I uh see what they did last year. They had that three-game win streak, beat Purdue, beat Rutgers, beat uh Northwestern last year, and then they laid the egg from Penn State, got shellacked by Iowa, lost to Oregon in a close one, got shellacked by Nebraska, got the beat the uh crap beat out of them by Minnesota last year. I mean, they just they've had these years last year. They were one game, one win away from being bowl eligible. Couldn't do it. Now, this season, if everything went right with the world, right, they could have ended up being bowl eligible again. But I don't think everything probably went right because they needed all those teams to go like three and fifteen or something like that in that last year.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that was quite the uh elaborate thing to happen.
SPEAKER_02:But you had another season where you had an opportunity, especially a Minnesota, get the axe back, go into the offseason, go into recruit, you know, early signing period week, give your recruits a pretty good impression of you. And now, I mean, did Luke Fickle take all the progress that he made? I'm gonna ask this question, and I want to hear everybody's opinion out there. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914. Let me know what you guys think. Did Luke Fickle take all the progress that he made? And did he go backwards with it? Are we back at that uncertainty again? What do you think, Christian? Where are you at? Did all that progress that he made those those two wins, those two massive ranked wins, does this loss take away from that?
SPEAKER_01:Um I don't think so. I the fan in me wants to say yes because of course we lost to the Gophers and you don't want to lose the axe and you know all that. But like again, this team was beat up so badly. We're on our fourth string quarterback, and yeah, Carter Smith's supposed to be the guy, right? But I don't know, he he can throw, like he can do stuff like he literally couldn't against Minnesota. That's why they put Hunter Simmons in that entire second half. And if you got Hunter Simmons as your quarterback in a game, like it's and he was actually doing I think he was actually slinging it around pretty well, but you know it's it was one of those things kind of like Braden Lock. You know, at some point, yeah, he can look really good, make these crazy throws, just like rip the ball, have the balls just ripping out of his hands, you know a pick's coming, you know, and it's just like huge drive killer twice back-to-back possessions. I just I don't know. So I don't think so. That's the thing. So yeah, that definitely like sucks to end on that and go into the season and go into the offseason with that, but I think it also gives us some clarity that maybe Carter Smith's not all the way there yet. He might be the guy next year, but you at least have to bring in some competition for him. You can't just let him just walk into the starting job, right? Right. So that's they know okay, we now we need a guy that can absolutely pass the ball. So we absolutely have to get a quarterback or two out of the portal. So I think, yeah, it sucks losing to the Golfers, it sucks losing the acts again, it sucks going out like that, but like I don't know. I think it gives you a little clarity on definitely what we need to, you know, do and what they need to address in the offseason. Now that they have that, you know, infusion of cash that Macintosh says is coming, they should be able to get someone, right? Right? Multiple people, but like at the very least, quarterback, I think we can all agree was like the Achilles heel of the team all year, right? I saw I saw someone tweet this, and like I absolutely agree. Like, if there's any position to overpay on right now, it's quarterback. Like, someone you have a guy you're offering two million dollars, they offer a little more, you offer three million. You offer, you know, it doesn't matter. You just do what it takes to get a quarterback, but then with our luck, that quarterback's probably gonna get hurt within the first game or two anyway.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we gotta keep one of these guys around, like Hunter Simmons, just to start week one, so that way whoever he's gonna get hurt first, and then we bring in the other guy. That's just how it's gonna be. So, um there you go. I I wanna say the progress wasn't completely lost, but I thought the decision making in this game, like you said, with the Hunter Simmons for Carter Smith, it didn't make sense because Carter Smith practiced with the ones all week, he was your guy all week. Why did it change in the Minnesota game? Because he couldn't throw the ball. Well, Hunter Simmons, as we know, and as you just said, he's got a touchdown to interception ratio of two to seven. He's got two touchdowns, seven interceptions on the air. So you were playing with fire. He had one good throw, and you were like, Yep, there he is, right? The one good throw to Vinnie Anthony. But Carter Smith on the game, was he five for seven? He wasn't bad. He was moving the ball. Wisconsin, I mean, you were playing a field position battle, you lost it due to turnovers and not being able to move the football once again because multiple times Minnesota started with the they couldn't get the ball past 50. I mean, everybody came out of that game, and I saw somebody down to ESBN Madison, I shared it on Facebook, and he's like complaining about you know Minnesota's Wisconsin's little brother because they they stormed the field, and this is this is what's terrible, and this and that. I'm like, you know what's terrible? You know what's terrible? Wisconsin couldn't get the ball past the 50. They had two costly interceptions in that game. There's a lot of different things that went wrong. And we're complaining about Minnesota storming the field. Who cares? Like, who cares? Oh, yeah, who cares? I'm so sick. They want to storm the field, let them. They won the axe. Great, good for them. They they did it, good, good for them. All hats off to them. Because it is, it's a big rivalry. So I would expect Wisconsin fans to storm the field if they won. It's the same thing. So, like, I'm good. I don't I don't care about that. What I care about is right now, when I look at this team, Minnesota controlled the trenches once again. You went into the offseason, right? If you're Luke Fickle, and you said yourself, though the big thing was the Iowa game, right? Controlling the trenches and everything like that. But that was also the Minnesota game. And you once again got manhandled in the trenches. That's nervous. That makes me worried a little bit. Because now, what is the what is this offseason gonna be about, right? Like you said, you gotta go get a quarterback. You gotta get a top-tier quarterback. You know what the hard part about getting a top-tier quarterback is? There's like 30 other teams that want one. You know what the hard part is? There's not 30 top-tier quarterbacks out there. So now you're in a bid more, like you said, and you got to bid a lot. So now how do you build up the trenches? So, Christian, I'm gonna ask you, do you believe this is my, I guess, one of my worries, and I want to hear what you think. Do you believe that guys are getting better in Wisconsin, developing? Because I just I'm losing track of seeing guys that are getting better, right? We see we see some of these young guys fill into roles and play good, right? Mason pos, Catalano, those guys. But I mean, I could look across and say, like, what offensive linemen's got better, what defensive linemans got better? I mean, they showed spurts, they showed moments, but I can't like Mason Rieger was a transfer. I can't count him. Mason Posa is a freshman, I can't count him. Catalano, I can't count him. Like, is that a worry of yours, too? Is that you're in a program right now where you can't spend as much as these other ones and you're not developing the players like you used to, I guess?
SPEAKER_01:I don't know, it's hard to tell because what is this year three? And when he came in, he brought in a ton of guys from Cincinnati that were already like you know, upperclassmen, you know, guys like um Paulis, and you know, we had all these guys that came in, right? So then he got his first waiver recruits coming. And I honestly felt like last year there's just this large exodus, especially of secondary players that he brought in with too that are gone, like Amari Snowden and Braden Moore, and you know, all these guys are gone now. If you just feel like and then you got guys like Kevin Haywood, who was supposed to be you know, I think a redshirt freshman, but he like had you know all this potential in the world, goes down in spring for all for the whole season. Like, that sucks. That's a huge, you know, huge piece. So I mean, it's hard to tell because I feel like just especially with the portal, I guess is what I'm saying. Like guys just leave, you know, if they're maybe not getting playing time, or they're not happy with coaches, or it's just not what they thought it would be, or I don't know. And it felt like he kind of leaned on you know the guys that were here already when he got here, and and you know, the guys that came with him right away. So I feel like we really haven't seen a whole lot of you know his recruits from high, you know, his first, I guess Emerson man Emerson Mandel. We saw I I thought he played relatively okay this year, like it wasn't necessarily a big weak link. I didn't notice him like I noticed uh Davis Heinzen all the time or Kerry Kadenko, but I mean, and but even by the end of the year, like that line wasn't nearly as big of a liability as it was at the beginning of the year, right? Right. So I don't I think I I'd like to say, yeah, I've definitely have seen a little bit, but again, like I don't know. You got guys like Daryl Peterson, who I was like kind of saying, like, what happened to this guy? And then also he absolutely just turns it on the last three, four games of the season. Yeah. So I don't know. I think it's kind of hard to tell.
SPEAKER_02:Because of all the missing pieces around.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. That's that's that's the easy way out. That I'm gonna cop out here, but like I it's just it really is just hard to tell. So I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_02:Like, I don't know. It's it's so hard to judge what he's done because of you could always use the cop out answer of the quarterbacks are hurt, or you could use the answer of the running backs were all hurt, or the linemen are hurt, and it's like, okay, but after a while, you gotta you gotta find a way to make it look like something. And I don't think they found a way to make it look like something at times on the offensive side. So it makes you question Jeff Grimes going to the offseason. Now, he didn't have a full offseason with the team, so we'll see how it goes here going in the next. It's just the worry, I guess, and I guess we'll end the badger football talk on this one, but are you worried about recruiting? Just because I don't know if recruits know what they're getting themselves into, right? We hear from Mason Post of Catalano, they're like, Yep, like I we can see the vision, you know, it's gonna be something in a while here, but then it's like you look at the outside looking in, and if I was a recruit and they said you can go to Iowa, you can go to Illinois, you can go to Wisconsin, or you can go out west somewhere. I don't know if Wisconsin's my top pick right now, even though I'm a Wisconsin guy. I'm looking at them like, man, I I don't know if this is gonna be pretty if I go there, if I'm an offensive player. So I guess are you worried, I guess, about the the signing of the early signing guys and all that of seeing that vision of what this program could be versus what we're looking at now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's they've like they had just lost one guy, you know, today to Iowa. I mean, granted, the guy was signed with or committed to Wisconsin as a tight end, and then Iowa comes in, they're like, hey, we think you're doing really well at the defensive line, and the guy had a crazy, really good off, like you know, senior season. Wisconsin's also like, oh yeah, cool, that's cool. We'll play you a D-line too, and he still flips to Iowa. So we lose a guy like that. Like, so that's the thing. If you're in the Midwest, Iowa, they've been playing really well. Even Minnesota's taking all of Wisconsin's recruits, even though I mean, this in this senior season, there wasn't really that many of like high-end recruits, not like the next next year is, and you can tell Wisconsin's really like doing putting like a concerted effort in like keeping those guys, because I mean, and that'll be huge because there's a lot of really good offensive line talent, there's a really good tight end in that group. So I think I don't know. I think it all just depends. If like you, I mean, maybe maybe it does help. You see like Mason Post and Catalano, and there's like, you know what, yeah, like I want to be part of that, you know, the group that turns the program around. Maybe you have some pride in the program like that, right? But if you're a guy that's just like, I want to win, like now, maybe I don't, you're going somewhere else. I want to get to the NFL because the badgers haven't been putting guys in the NFL lately either.
SPEAKER_02:That's where you're almost like you're gonna lose out on a lot of the big recruits. So now you gotta get the guys you got to develop because, like you're saying, those guys who are four stars and that, they're close to NFL. Like they're not, they're not ready yet, but they're they're closer. They want to win now, they want to look good, they want to get as many games in, which means playoff, which means you know, bowl games, that kind of thing. And being in a program where it's been lackluster as of late, not exactly the the spot that's gonna put them in the spotlight, right? The big games and everything like that. So yeah, I I'm I'm in a worrisome state with that. I I can understand where you're like, okay, we just gotta, you know, get the right guys in the room, everything like that. The right guys will come around. Okay, but it's you still, right? You know, you had trying to attract still good quarterbacks, everything like that. So it's gonna be a almost a diamond in the rough kind of guy if you find one of those, like a Russell Wilson coming in. Like it's been a while since you had a really it's been forever since you actually had a really good quarterback. So, I mean, it's it's not been quarterback you ever. So we'll see what the Badgers can do here moving forward. We're gonna talk early signing period, the guys who signed everything like that. We'll talk about that next week here on the show, just because we're pre-recorded, as you guys know, so we don't know everything that happened tomorrow, technically, right? Today, Wednesday. So we're gonna talk about that next week here on the show. We'll get into all that. When we come back from the break, Christian's gonna stick around. We have Badger basketball to talk to get to here. We're gonna talk about that trip to San Diego, moving forward, everything like that. We'll be right back here on Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trage. I'm your host, Trage, as we come back here on this Wednesday. And hey, this next segment is brought to you by JBC Scrimprint Screen Printing and Embroidery. At JBC Screen Printing and Embroidery, they take pride in their work because your image is their business. Check them out there, they do fantastic work, they're doing t-shirts for us too. If you check out the Facebook page, Wisconsin Sports on the Go Trade, all socials, make sure you're following them. But Wisconsin Sports on the Go Trade, you can find the website there. Go order yourself a t-shirt, hat, sweatshirt, whatever you need. Somebody on your holiday list needs something. Five dollars from every purchase will go to our fantastic non-for-profit group, Warm Kids Wisconsin. So, I mean, check them out. Check it out there, grab a warm hat, maybe a maybe a sweatshirt, shirt, whatever you want. And then five dollars from that purchase will go to Warm Kids Wisconsin. There's nothing better. There's nothing better than helping kids stay warm this winter season here. So Christian is back. We gotta do our this is our we got a consensus because we both had the same. We're gonna do good, bad, and ugly off the weekend. And we had the same consensus: good, bad, and ugly. So the good, the Green Bay Packers. I mean, it's self-explanatory. Beat the Lions, beat the Lions twice twice this year, got that win there on Thanksgiving at Ford Field. That was fantastic on national television. Once again, Jordan Love showed out there. Matt LaFleur was aggressive. It was fantastic. We're gonna get into more Packers next year on the show, but that was fantastic to see. The bad from the weekend has got to be the Badgers. The way that they finished that little tournament out there in San Diego, men's basketball there. It wasn't the Providence game, it was great. The TCU game, we saw the ugly again. So we're gonna talk about that here in a minute, but that was our bad. The ugly has got to be the Wisconsin Badgers football. Wisconsin Badgers football was yeah, there's nothing short of ugly. We talked about if you guys missed that, we just talked about here last on the show. If you want to check that out, listen across all podcast platforms tomorrow, next day. You can hear us talk about badger football there. That was our ugly, and then honorable mention ugly. We made sure to include that. We got Lane Kiffin and the Ole Miss situation because that's a disaster. I mean, Christian, just quick hitter on that one. What were your thoughts on the Lane Kiffin thing? I mean, he shouldn't be able to coach at Ole Miss. No, absolutely not. No, I can't believe anybody's fighting for it.
SPEAKER_01:No, it's like, yeah, here uh I'm gonna leave you, but here, let me just try to get some extra glory, you know, and like go coach through the college football playoff, get all the credit for that, and then I'm dipping, right?
SPEAKER_02:Right. It's like, no, no, dude, you you left, you're going to a rival. We don't like like Ole Miss doesn't like LSU. They they're not like people from Ole Miss do not like LSU. So why would they want you, who is going to coach a rival, to come and coach them through the playoff run? Nah, see you later. We have an offensive coordinator that can step up and be the head coach. We can we can figure this out. Like we'll be we'll be fine.
SPEAKER_01:I think that they're they're often that guy on the plane with Kiffin to go to LSU, and then they're just about to say that coach. What's what's the deal with that?
SPEAKER_02:The offensive coordinator is going to LSU. They're just allowing him to be the offensive coordinator for this. So hopefully there isn't some undermining like baloney that is gonna happen there because that's gonna be it's gonna be a 30 for 30. I guarantee it. It's gonna be awesome. Oh, it has to be. Yeah, it's gonna be. It's I can't wait. I can't wait for that 30 for 30. College football stinks. The whole layout of the early signing period, transfer portal, everything like that stinks, and that's why we have this situation. It's Lane Kiffen. I don't, I I'm not, I don't care that Lane Kiffin feels bad that he can't coach him, but it's also a college football problem because they allow the trend, they have the early signing period, the week of conference championships, the season's still going. You're gonna run into this problem because you have to get to your new destination to be able to recruit guys or bring guys with you. So they created this mess. That's the mess that we're seeing in front of us. But we don't care about that. We don't care about Lane Kiff and Ole Miss, anything like that. We want to talk some badger hoops because the Badgers, five and two, they went to San Diego. We were like, okay, they got this matchup against Providence. If they win that, we were expecting Florida. Like, full fledged. I was like, no doubt in my mind, Badgers are gonna play Florida if they win. They didn't, they did not. They uh TCU pulled off the upset win against Florida, so they got TCU in the second game there. So I we can talk about the first game, but there's not much to talk about. The badgers shot the lights out of the building, they were fantastic. Second game, and I'm gonna go with the TCU game and the BYU game together because this is the ugly that I'm seeing. This front court for the Badgers, the front court, has got me really nervous. They're not physical enough, and I Nolan Winter has played better. He actually has been pretty good against a pretty good big. So I don't want to completely hate on Nolan Winter here. But Austin Rapp, the way that we went into this season was this front court was supposed to be good. They were gonna be a very good, like a force to be reckoned with, really good scoring, physical, get down low, be able to add a post presence to this team, aggressive, all that. I'm not seeing that. And the consistency from the front court is not there. So I am really, I don't know, Christian. Are you I'm worried about the front court? The backcourt, I Blackwell and Boyd, they're gonna be fine. I think they'll be fine. Boyd's gotta learn how to settle down a little bit, they gotta learn how to live together like Batman and Robin. They have to learn how to be together. So I think they're gonna be fine. The front court for me, that's my worry because there's this inconsistency there, the aggressiveness. Austin Rapp is not an inside presence at all. He he's nothing on the inside. Actually, when he gets downhill, he actually like makes me nervous driving because layup is a sure thing. The front court's a worry. I mean, are you worried about that front court for Wisconsin?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I don't know. I like I'd like to think that as the season goes on, they'll figure it out, you know, because again, like we've talked about with the transfers and all this stuff, it's you know, this isn't a group that's played together a whole lot. I think they still have a lot to figure out, and I think that's why I think that's why Guard kind of you know scheduled some tough competition uh with like BYU, things like that. Like we saw them just blow teams out earlier before they like Campbell and Northern Illinois and all that, and like that's not necessarily making them play together because that's that could just be one guy, two guys just kind of doing their thing, and they still can beat a team, right? Right, um so like now Big Ten starting up Wednesday night tonight, um, and then the guy Marquette on Saturday, but um that myths I think that'll make them better. So I think I'm not worried about it yet. I think Austin Raps will try to figure out how to play like big boy basketball, right? So like playing in the big playing in the Big Ten, playing all these, you know, quad one, quad two teams and stuff. We're not in Portland State anymore. I think that'll help, but yeah, it is a little concerning so far, especially since he was brought here to shoot threes and he's shooting like 29% on the year. So it's not great.
SPEAKER_02:But it's a lot of rust. It's it's a lot of rushed shots for this team right now. They're trying to force a lot of things, and I think that is because they do lack the inside presence. They don't know how to score if the three's not falling. Then they get out of control. Nick Boyd starts to drive downhill too much, and he starts to get out of control there going too fast. And then John Blackwell, he starts trying to do it. He actually doesn't get involved enough, actually, in my opinion. I thought John Blackwell actually like hesitated away from his shot at times, and then in that TCU game, he's like, All right, I can take over. But then my when when he was getting hot, Boyd was still trying to do too much, and it's like, okay, feed the hot hand. But they this team struggles at times, and it's been like this. They they stick on one side of the court too much, they're not working the ball around, finding open shooters, driving lanes, finding those lanes like that. They and and I talked about it going into that BYU game. I said they're gonna have open shots from three because BYU is gonna overhelp, they're gonna be able to get open shots. Can they knock them down? They couldn't in that game. But then when those shots aren't falling, as we've seen twice now, TCU and BYU against BYU, how do they find the offense? They have not been able to find an offense when it's not working. Last season, it was big on like Tanja and those guys getting downhill, but getting to the free throw line. And when you get to the free throw, I mean, look at the Arizona game. They don't win that unless they shoot what, 40 free throws in that game. Like they don't win that game unless they shoot 40 free throws. That's why they won the basketball game. But they did that by getting downhill and getting to the rim and allowing the refs to dictate what was going to happen there by them driving the lane. And you saw it last game. Tanjae faded away from the contact instead of going into the contact there against BYU in the tournament game. What happened? They lost. This team right here, that's where I'm talking the aggressiveness. They're not taking the issue of going to the rim and making things happen. They're trying to allow the game to come to them instead of going after it. And that's where my worries come. That's where my worries come, is with the aggressiveness of this team to get after it. My question to you is, and this is gonna go along with the aggressiveness. Ever since the Badgers decided, well, not decided, but you know, they said, let's go offensive oriented. Let's, you know, more shots. We're gonna get more shots, we're gonna run a little bit, everything like that. The defense has taken a back seat. And my problem is that when it's going right and they can put up 104 points, everything looks great. But can they beat a Purdue team when Purdue is slowing the pace of the game down? Can they beat a team like uh a Rutgers or whoever when they're slowing the pace? Michigan State. You know, Michigan State doesn't always score 80. They're they're down there in the 60s a lot. That went 60 to 50. Like, does Wisconsin doesn't have the versatility to play a defensive battle anymore? So I guess that that's my concern. Are you as concerned about that with I guess I don't know if that'd be more of a program problem, but and it's not gonna be fixed this year because you're not gonna be able to fix it. But well, you can, you can, you can tweak things, but you're not gonna be able to fix personnel right now. But my worry, I guess, is that okay, Roadie's a pretty good defender. Nick Boyd, pretty good defender, Blackwell, pretty good defender, Austin Rapp. I guess rim protection is probably my big thing. I guess that's my biggest worry right now, is the rim protection. But it's just that defensive, they allow too many, uh, too many drives to the basket, too many kickouts, they allow guys to get downhill too easy, to get to their spots. I guess that's my biggest concern with this badger team is they're kind of letting that defense take a backseat to trying to score a lot. Is that a worry that you have where it's like, okay, we're we're not really focused on the defensive side now, which I think needs to come back. I think they need to focus more on the defensive end because right now I think that's where they're getting beat bad and fast break points, everything like that. They're getting beat bad in that way. Is that a worry that you have is the defensive side of the ball?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, and then part of that is because of the offense, right? Like they'll they'll defend, defend, defend, get a stop, or a turnover, you know, something like that, and then they get the ball up the floor, and it feels like they're five seconds into the shot clock and they're shooting a three, you know, and then they don't. I mean, they've been better this year, like again, offensive rebounds, I guess, than like last year, but I feel like I guess I have no stats to back this up. I feel like they're shooting more threes this year than they did last year. Um, and like really the only guy I ever see going in is Blackwell or well, Blackwell and and Boyd. Like there are two guards or the two guys are constantly attacking the hoop, which is weird, right? Nolan Wentzers start likes to shoot his threes. We all know Rapp likes to shoot his threes. Roadie doesn't really shoot at all, so like I don't know. I roadie's kind of the defensive guy, and everyone else is just kind of there, you know, like on the defensive end. Everyone else is more of an offensive threat, and I feel like a lot just falls on him and on Roadie and then Carrington when he's in two. He like those are the two big defensive guys, right? And then yeah, I think the big guys, Andrew or Gar Will Garlic is the only guy that like I don't can is much of a post presence defensively, but he's a true freshman and he's so raw and like he makes so many mistakes, especially on offense. So he's a liability there. So I think it's just yeah, I think like what you're saying, defense is a problem because if we can't stop anyone and we are falling in love with the three over and over and we're not hot, that's a problem because then we don't work it inside, we don't like you know, yeah, it's always the threes. I think they just tied a program record. I don't know if it was the Providence game or the TCU game, but they just tied a program record for 43s attempted in a game. So I don't know. Yeah, I think the defense is a problem, but I think also just offensively, like all they want to do is shoot threes. That's all they want to do. And then even if they're not falling, shoot to get hot, shoot to get hot, and it's just if it doesn't work, that's when you see what happens against TCU and and BYU.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean seven for 28 against TCU from three, seven for twenty-eight against TCU. I mean, that's that's a lot, that's a lot of threes. And 25. Yeah, 25. And yeah, a lot of threes, and they're not falling. And that's that's where I guess the worry is like you can't find ways to knock down shots. So that's where if you're Greg Guard in a game like that, and that's where I guess the defensive the defense is my worry, is in a game like that where shots aren't falling, you basically have to say, okay, we have to change the game plan now, right? Shots aren't falling, we're not hot. How are we gonna change it? We got to play defense, we have to keep this low scoring because badgers of the past, Bo Ryan badges, right? They weren't, it wasn't gonna be, you know, 90 to 80, it was gonna be 60 to 55, it was gonna be 70 to 66 because it was free throws. That's where I guess we're missing from this team is the ability to change, change the game and to change the way that they're going to play a game by what's happening. If it's if they aren't knocking out shots, they're going to lose. That that's kind of and it's kind of cliche to say it that way. But I mean, it's you can watch these other teams, you watch a team like UConn, they can adjust in a game. You watch a team like Duke, you watch a team like Kansas or BYU, those teams can adjust to the pace of the game, well, how the game's being played, what needs to happen at certain times. Shots will start to fall, but what are you gonna do to get to that point? So that's I guess the worry of this defense right now is that they don't have the ability to get consistent stops. And I don't know how you fix that right now. It's it's gotta be better communication, shooting lanes a little bit better right now. They're letting guys get downhill too easy. These guards, these guys, they get downhill too easy on this team, they get out of position too easy, and that's on Greg Guard to figure out here with this defense. I'm not worried about the offense, actually. I'm not. I mean, yes, they they lost the TCU and they weren't shooting the ball well, but that's because they're relying too heavily on the three. They could fix that. Drive, move the ball around, find open cutting lanes, all that. They go away from cutting. Like they're such a good passing team, yet they don't cut. They stand in, they're complacent, they stand in one spot. Find a way to move the basketball around, that fixes the offense. Defensively, there's a lot of things that got to happen over there. And I don't know, I don't know how it's gonna happen. I don't know if Austin Rapp is your best option defensively. He's like a Connor Asesian, like honestly, he's a taller version of Connor Ashesian. He's a three-point shooter, but defensively, he's not really the guy. So we'll see what kind of happens there with that situation, everything like that. But badge basketball, like you said, big 10 play, opening up here. They got Northwestern. I believe that's as we're talking. Yeah, that's as we're talking. Well, eight o'clock tonight here. They're gonna be taking on Northwestern. You know, Northwestern, they play physical all the time. That's a physical team. They're gonna get after you. We're gonna find out how physical this team can get when you play a team like Northwestern because they like to get after you. They're defensive team, they love to do that. So, I mean, Northwestern should be a good game, Mark. Cat coming up this weekend, big game there. And then next week they got Nebraska right away. So big ten play, opening up some big games. Connor Asion done for the year. I saw he had a surgery or something. He's done for the year.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he had like ankle ankle injury. I saw, so he's out for the year.
SPEAKER_02:Poor guy. I feel so bad. Prayers to that guy. Prayers to that guy. Hopefully. Hopefully, he comes back stronger at like, I don't know, like St. Bonaventure or something.
SPEAKER_01:Get out of the conference.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, he could be good at somewhere else. But, anyways, anyways, Christian, I gotta run here. Thank you for stopping by tonight. Let the people know where to find you out there across social media.
SPEAKER_01:As always, you can find me at Christian Borman on pretty much all the social media. And uh you can find my work at the badgerbacker.com.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I'll make sure you guys are checking them out. Tons of fantastic stuff happening around the Badger world right now. Badger Wrestling's actually got some guys up there in the rankings right now. Badger volleyball is currently gonna get they're getting ready for CDO tournament setting up. Yes, sir. There we go. We got some post season play for Badger volleyball. They're fantastic. They've been playing fantastic as of late. So hopefully that continues in the tournament. Badger women's basketball, they had a pretty good game against Ole Miss over the weekend there. Challenged them a little bit. So I mean Badger Women's Basketball is on the they're getting better. They're getting better. They're gonna get men's basketball. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's all we can ask for is that they, you know, getting up there. And then recruiting, signing period is happening. So he's gonna be covering that. Make sure you guys check them out there. Badger backers. So we're gonna be back here for the break. We have some Packer talk coming at you. Umr's gonna stop by. We're gonna talk Packers at the end of hour number one, and then in hour number two, if we're gonna continue that Packer talk, we'll be right back here. I'm your host, Trage, as we come back here on this Wednesday. Nay, this next segment here, Ummer's stopping by. We get some Packer Talk to get to. This next segment is brought to you by Marshfield Motor Speedway, the half mile paved track, just three miles west of Marshfield on County Road H. Find coming upcoming events and races at marshfieldspeedway.com. That is marshfieldspeedway.com there. If you guys want to be involved in any portion of the show here tonight, if you want to let me know that my voice is sounding like absolute crap tonight here, make sure you guys are texting the show. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914, or at me at Twitter. You can at me on there and I can read it off of there. Or you can hit up me on uh Facebook Messenger or whatever. Just find us across all the socials, Wisconsin Sports and the Go Trade. So Amr is here. Before I lose my voice, I gotta take a drink here. Amr, how are we doing on this Wednesday?
SPEAKER_04:Good, man. I'm good, man. I can't complain, man. It's been a crazy week. We're supposed to get snow yesterday. We didn't, and so yeah, for the most part, you know, we're uh it's not too bad. I can't complain. I'm riding the hive from Thanksgiving and uh just really uh enjoying a lot of the commentary on social media related to the bears who are acting like they've never been there before. So they're just they're they're feeling themselves right now, which I can't blame them. So, you know, they had a good game on Friday, and yeah, they're they're they're they're definitely excuse me. I think I'm messing up too. They're feeling themselves right now.
SPEAKER_02:They're feeling it, we're feeling it. It's just it's just rough right now. It's just rough. But hey, I mean, like we said, the Bears had to prove it to us. They had to beat a good team, they beat a good team. That's what they did. I know it's a dysfunctional good team, but a good team nonetheless. So they found a way to win, and that's all that matters in the National Football League, right? It's just stacking up wins when you can get them, and that's what the Bears are doing. So it's gonna lead up to a good game here coming up on uh Sunday, and then also I saw the Bears game got flexed to primetime 720 there for the uh what the December 20th match up there. What is that? A Sunday or is that a Sunday? Is it a Sunday or a Monday? That's Sunday night and Sunday night. Okay, that's a little bit better. That's a little bit better. Sorry, Sunday, Sunday. It's Saturday. It's a Saturday, that's even better. That's even we can go, we can we're gonna do we're gonna do a live stream that day. We're gonna do a live stream that day. We're gonna do one of those like watch-alongs or whatever. Let's get real fired up there as we're talking about Packers Bears. That could be fun. So, Packers, Bears. We got two matchups in three weeks. We're gonna get into all of that here. I can't wait. But we got to talk about what we watched there against the Lions, a Thanksgiving game that once again the Packers are as good on Thanksgiving. I don't know what it is. Jordan Love and actually Jordan Love in primetime, Jordan Love in the national spotlight just ends up playing well, and that's what we saw once again in this game. Homer, I'm gonna ask the question. Okay. Why does Matt LaFleur change the way that he play calls week by week, game by game, because of the opponent that he's playing? Is it crazy that I just want to I want him to find a way? Like I I want to I want him to like Dan Campbell. What's Dan Campbell's MO? Like, if I were to say, how does Dan Campbell play call? You would tell me what. He's very aggressive, very aggressive, right? And like you have play callers who are conservative, you have play callers who are overly aggressive, you have play callers who are in between. Matt LaFleur goes both ways, like he's a roller coaster, like he's like, I want to be aggressive this week, and then oh, I want to be this, and then I want to be. It's like sometimes I just want, is it crazy for me to just want to see Matt LaFleur to find a play, uh play style? Like it's I feel like he's missing that identity in his play calling where he he tries to change himself to the opponent that he's playing. When I listened to like Nick Saban said, they said, Do you believe somebody asked him that like, do you do you uh change up the way you practice because you're playing this opponent that week? He's like, No, because if you change, why would you not prepare for every game the same way? Why would you change the way that you prepare for a game just because you're playing a better team or a worse team, it's gonna make you play worse against that worse team, right? So why do you change the way that you play call just well, I get that you're gonna have different, like you had a scheme up for like a for like a Miles Garrett, right? Or somebody else. I I get that you have those guys, but you want your play style to be aggressive, you want your play style to be overly concerned. What which way do you want to go? Is it crazy to think that you want it have a you want to have almost like a identity? And I feel like at times he lacks the identity of what he wants to do.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, for me, I think uh the one thing we noticed for the floor, like I think in the beginning of the year he was really trying to figure out his team, right? He was trying to figure out what he has, what he doesn't have. I think the last three weeks, when Jordan did get hurt in that Giants game with the shoulder, I definitely think he took a step back because he didn't want to risk him getting hurt anymore. Minnesota game, he was definitely still trying to protect that shoulder, and then after that, you know, Jordan must have told him, Hey, I'm good, let's let it rip. I think what we're gonna see now, I think you have a valid point. We'll be interested to see how he attacks Chicago because you're kind of like in playoff time, right? And the biggest thing that we always know, like we remember back to the Mike McCarthy. Mike McCarthy was kind of dude, like he didn't like game plan for his opponent. He just basically was like, Hey, this is our offense, this is what we run, beat us if you can beat us, right? And that worked for many, many years up until it stopped working. Because then, you know, he didn't he couldn't like really conform to defenses. Defenses were figuring out, they realized they could do too high shell man press and disrupt the receivers on their routes because they were just making everyone you know win their one-on-one instead of like scheming people open and things like that. And because of that with LeFloor, you get the same kind of approach you do with him, like you do with Halfly, where I feel like they do try to game plan every week for the opponent that they're playing. Now you're right, when you do that and you're playing like a guy, a team like at the time, Carolina or Cleveland, or even uh whatchamacallit, um, uh Giants or uh just all these teams that aren't really that good, yeah. Do you play down to the competition because that's how you're game playing it, right? Yeah, um, but I think he just what he tries to find out is that team that he's playing, what their weaknesses are, and he just tries to focus on exploring that over and over again. And sometimes he's in that mode and he doesn't break out of it. So it will be interesting to see what he does here because you know, against Detroit, he knew that they play heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy man. Like they play probably 95% man and rarely play zone. And that's the way they've coached when it was Aaron Glenn and how they're coaching with Kevin Sharper. And I feel like he when it comes to that, as long as you're willing to get the protection that you need for your quarterback, you can get plays down the field. And if you want that game, like Jordan was pressured a lot. There was a lot of times if Pocket was collapsing around him, and and earlier in the year when that happened, he would take a sack, he would throw it away, it would be just be just terrible, right? And I he was playing fearless. Like, I don't know if Toyota's now going and he's just popping up. I there was I think there's a little bit of like LaFleur giving his quarterback an opportunity to make plays, his quarterback is making those plays, and the playmakers that he's throwing it to are also doing their job, and that's what we didn't see in the Philly game. That's what we didn't see in a lot of these games where we lost, right? Yep, and we're starting to see it now.
SPEAKER_02:I feel I had to look this up because I was just thinking about this, and I feel like this is the way that Matt LaFleur coaches, and Halfly kind of goes along with him. They coach the way that you categorize chess players. Yes. So there's four categories that you put chess players into. If anybody does, if anybody knows, they're probably like, well, let's just go, you know, okay, go along with me. You have the activist, right? The activists, they're gonna create threats, they're gonna play aggressively, okay? The pragmatist, they're going to be cautious and avoid complexion. They don't they don't want to get they don't want to get too complex on them. The theorist is going to they're they're going to play the game where their preparation gives them the edge, and then you have the reflector. And this is the way that Matt LaFleur likes to go sometimes. They analyze the opponent's strength and weaknesses and adjust their play accordingly. So he tries to he tries to adjust himself to what the opponent's going to do. And he thinks that he he overthinks that portion, right? Because what was against Carolina? He tried to go side to side too much, right? He didn't go straight ahead, he tried to go side to side. He thought he could beat him to the edges. That was a failure. Instead of just being one style, and I might have just blew it up there with the chess thing. Maybe it made no sense. I don't know. I thought maybe it made no sense. No, you're right.
SPEAKER_04:I think you're no you were so.
SPEAKER_02:Either way, it's like he he he has to find you you have to categorize yourself, right? As a play caller. How do you want to call games? I think you got to stick with that because otherwise you're one week you're going with this, and the next one week you're run heavy. The next week you're this. The next week you're this. The next week. I want I want this team to find their their identity. I feel like they lack an identity. Are they a run team? Are they a pass team? It changes. Some some weeks it's like, oh, we got to see more of Josh Jacobs. And then some weeks it's oh, we got to see more of Jordan Love. And then it's like, okay, but we're not seeing enough of either one. We're not seeing enough play action. We're not seeing enough of this. But that's because we're not finding an identity. We see the play action, we're like, oh, that worked really good. But then he goes away from it for two weeks. And then he comes back to it. It's like, oh, that was really good. Matt LaFleur, 2023, Matt LaFleur was so good, so good at scheming up games and being aggressive. And did not, he did not waver the way that he was calling games. Right. And that's what I think he's gotten away from. Whether it's he's scared, uh let Jordan Love just sling it, or he's scared of this, or he's scared. You just got to throw that to the wind. What we saw against the Detroit Lions is the Mat LaFleur that if he calls games like that moving forward, nobody's gonna complain. Nobody. If you let Jordan Love be Jordan Love, you saw a team, like you said, that went heavy man. That's what they want to do. They run man. They think that they're gonna go manoe-mano with you. The way that their coach likes to coach is the way they play. I like that. They thought that they can go man to man. Now, did it work? No. No, because the Packers, receivers, really good. Christian Watson can blow top off you. Dontavian Wicks has got some of the best separation in the league. It's just he didn't have the hands to go along with it. We saw that all last year. Now he's getting open and he's finding ways to catch football. So it's just completely taking that to the next level. You're gonna get Jaden Reed back, you're gonna have Matthew Golden back. This team has a boatload of weapons. Let be aggressive, utilize them and be aggressive. That's the playstyle. That's the ammo. That's the identity that I want to see Matt LaFleur get and to find, just stick with it. Just stick with it. Because at the end of the day, I'm not gonna be mad if Jordan Love throws a pick, but you were aggressive. If you went forward on a fourth and two on the 40-yard line and you didn't get it, but you trust your defense then. I'm good with it. So that's where I kind of at that point with this Matt LaFleur team is I want to see him find an identity and run with it. And right now, what I saw against the Lions, you do that against the Bears, I think you're sitting good. I think you're sitting good in that one. That's a good team. That's a good team of the Bears. They can run the football. The pass game is still a little suspect, but they can run the football. That's still a good team over there. So the injured reserves. We see some guys coming off there. Colin Oliver, Lloyd, Brenton Cox. We saw Reed come back last week there. So we're seeing some guys coming back, right?
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Devontae Wyatt is going to the he's done for the year. I mean, we saw that injury. I said, right as it happened, I said there's no way he did not just break everything. Like that was that was gruesome. That was bad. He was having a great year. It sucks, but he is going to be out for the year. So I mean, do you see do any of these guys actually make the roster?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, I think I think right now with the way our defensive line is because outside of Jaden Reed, of course.
SPEAKER_02:Outside of Jane Reed, the other yeah, I was like, yeah, Jane Reed's gonna be a good one. Yeah, Jane Reed's gonna be sure.
SPEAKER_04:I think Marshawn Lloyd would be a good element to have if he can stay healthy. He's a he adds another element to our team that we probably don't have right now. Yep, he reminds me a lot of a combination of Josh Jacobs and Emmanuel Wilson. He's built like he's kind of built like Jacobs in a sense of size, but then when it comes to like speed, he has like you know Emmanuel Wilson's speed, right? Yeah, and it's like so he could be a good, like, like a good like break, like you know, change of pace back because you don't really have that right now. Like Chris Brooks is a great pass protector. He's decent, you know, he's a he's a above average player, but he's not like that. He's not built like that, right? Now, when it comes to Brenton Cox, Brenton Cox is having a good year. I mean, what was it? I think it was like his first second week, he got hurt, but before that, he was he was in there, he was making plays. Like him, uh Barre, all these guys that are like you know, backup players are actually performing really well. So having like more pass rushers is not a bad thing, considering the fact that we just lost Wyatt, Carl Brooks is banged up, Kobe Wooden has been kind of in and out of lineup as well. Too Lucas Van Esse is still injured, right? So it may not hurt to bring in a guy like him, then callin Oliver. We don't know what we have there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that guy he's gonna be a guy who's gonna be like a red shirt, like yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_04:But like if he can get healthy, if he can show up and he could, you know, show up on special teams because he was a special team Maven at Oklahoma State, and on top of that, too. Um, I don't know if he'd be a pass rusher for Moso. I feel like he'd be a hybrid between a defensive end and a linebacker. So playing between those two positions, right? Yeah, um, I can see all three of them making the team if there's a if there's a role for them, right? Yeah, I Colin Oliver will be the one where I feel like he may they may they did that with um uh Keen Oladapa last year. Like he didn't play well last year, he was red shirt. I feel like that might happen to say with Oliver, but the other two, I think then they'll come back and they'll find a way to make him fit. Question is like you said, where do they go?
SPEAKER_02:Right. And it's it's gonna be a big question. We'll see what they kind of do if Lucas Van Ness kind of, if they maybe move him to injure reserve, all that kind of stuff to see what they're gonna do there. So we're gonna come back here. We're gonna hit the hit, we're gonna hit the hour break here. We're gonna come back, we're gonna continue this Packer talk here in hour number two. We'll be right back here on Wisconsin Sports on the go with trade.