Luke Fickell simply cannot beat Iowa as head coach of Wisconsin. Following the Badgers' embarrassing 30-0 loss to the Hawkeyes on Halloween, he's now 0-4 against Iowa in his Wisconsin tenure.
But it's not just the losses. It's the complete inability to even field a competitive product against one of the Badgers' biggest rivals. Each loss has been more dumbfounding than the last.
What does a win over a disappointing USC team last week mean if the Badgers look like an FCS team against one of their closest rivals they play every year? Wisconsin wideout Chris Brooks Jr said this after beating the Trojans that "This team has a sort of different fight that I haven't felt from past teams." Are we certain?
By every metric, this is a much improved team than the one last fall that got eviscerated 37-0. And yet, it's inexplicably more of the same in what was universally billed as Wisconsin's biggest game of the season.
Below, Badgers On SI offers instant takeaways from Wisconsin's horrific loss on Halloween:
Wisconsin Badgers quarterback Colton Joseph. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Stat of the game:Iowa Quarterback Hank Brown was 20-24 for 222 yards and two touchdowns. All week, this was billed as a game that was going to be won and lost in the trenches. Make no mistake - Iowa still dominated the Badgers in the trenches on both sides of the ball. But the most shocking part of the result was Brown, who was at one point this season demoted to backup quarterback in Iowa City, shredding the Badgers' secondary.
Star of the game:Wide receiver Jaylon Domingeaux is the only answer. He led Wisconsin with six catches for 86 yards, including a highly impressive 41-yard catch on the Badgers' third drive. He looks to have the best hands in Wisconsin's wide receiver room.
Defining play of the game:Down 10-0, Wisconsin was finally in the midst of putting together a decent drive, powered by a 41-yard circus catch by the wideout Domingeaux. But on 4th-and-goal from the 1 yard-line, the Badgers got cute and ran a sweep to tailback Abu Sama, who was stuffed for the turnover on downs.
The Badgers had an excellent chance to cut the lead to three points and make this game a lot more manageable. Instead, a brutal play-call doomed them as they couldn't get a single yard on 4th-and-goal. Wisconsin was incompetent all game long, and the 4th down debacle represented that perfectly.
What it means:There's no excuse for this kind of performance. Last season, Wisconsin was a pretty horrendous football team; while the loss to Iowa was certainly embarrassing and horrific in its own right, it wasn't that surprising in that again, the Badgers simply weren't very good.
Now clearly, these Badgers aren't that good either. But again, this is a much-improved football team than last year by every meaningful statistical metric, and by all accounts, a much tighter and better-connected football team. A loss like this points to an institutional inability for this coaching staff and regime to beat one of the program's biggest rivals. That's deeply disturbing.
Don't overlook:Wisconsin benched quarterback Colton Joseph late in the third quarter in favor of true freshman Ryan Hopkins. Joseph's final stat-line was 5-of-14 for 90 yards, the third straight game in which he's failed to surpass even 100 yards passing. Hopkins wasn't much better, completing 8-of-13 passes for 93 yards and an interception.
Still, there may be a legitimate quarterback controversy in Madison at this point. As recently as a week ago, I wasn't ready to write Joseph off. Even in this game, Joseph was far from Wisconsin's biggest problem. But it's now time to have a serious conversation about the quarterback position for the Badgers.
What's next:Wisconsin returns to Camp Randall Stadium to face Rutgers, which just gave Michigan a battle for four quarters but ultimately fell to 2-6 on the year and 1-4 in the Big Ten. The kickoff time has yet to be announced, but the game will be broadcasted on Big Ten Network.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/wisconsin as Instant Takeaways from No. 25 Wisconsin's Humiliating 30-0 loss at Iowa .
