Luke Fickell and the University of Wisconsin football team narrowly escaped disaster in their 28-14 Week 1 win against Western Michigan, despite entering the game as heavy favorites.
The game nearly slipped away due to a brilliantly executed trick play that exposed a glaring flaw in the Badgers special teams unit.
For over a year, Wisconsin’s field goal block scheme had become painfully predictable. As spotlighted in a YouTube breakdown by Isaac Punts , whenever an opponent lined up on the hash, the Badgers staff consistently ran the same six-man rush, bringing pressure from the field side, thus leaving the weak side vulnerable with just a linebacker for coverage.
This was a textbook look, repeated without variation game after game.
Punts also shared with AllBadgers that there’s one small wrinkle in their approach—occasionally, they’ll triple-team the tackle on the field side instead of the guard, which suggests they’re at least trying to exploit a weaker link. But schematically, it does little to discourage a fake.