The offense has under performed all year, and the passing game for longer than that. They lost Cephus and Zander but have largely remained injury free. They have a QB playing in his 3rd year in this system, 3 All-Americans and 5 returning starters on the OL, a Heisman candidate and the nation's leading rusher, 3 solid returning WRs, an emerging star at TE in Ferguson and nice, solid role players in Deal, Ingold and Groshek. Somehow, that group was 7th in the Big Ten in total offense even before today's dreadful offensive display with Coan. It's like Chryst is the last person in Wisconsin to understand he can't rely on his defense the way he could the last few years. They gave up 31 points to Northwestern and the reasonable consensus is that the defense didn't play that poorly. That's a pretty good indication of how badly Chryst's offense hangs the defense out to dry. They did it last year, too. The defense was just much better at bailing the offense out. I have no idea how that doesn't warrant some very legitimate questions, and I'm having a hard time shrugging my shoulders and saying "Oh well, they always play shitty games at Northwestern."
The meaningless FG attempt, the punting, the strange personnel decisions, the adherence to tendency and general lack of urgency we've seen in many games this season are, to me, emblematic of a coach who is playing not to lose. You can trust your players to make plays and risk mistakes, or you can slowly crash and burn while playing scared and end up making a ton of mistakes anyway. I was as frustrated as anyone by Taylor's fumbles. What are you going to do, sit him down to teach him a lesson or make sure he doesn't make any more mistakes? You're down 21 in a huge division game and he's your best player. Get him on the field and stop monkeying around with the ridiculous shuffling of RBs every series. That's not at all why we lost today but it's just another fetal position decision that doesn't help you win.