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Wisconsin football fans have had enough awful offensive performances and want a change at OC.

The Badgers got shellacked by Alabama 42-10 in the biggest college football game of last weekend, and when it rains, it pours in Madison.

Starting QB Tyler Van Dyke suffered a serious injury, backup Braedyn Locke got manhandled by the Crimson Tide, and it was overall a trash performance for the Badgers.

Trust me, it didn’t look any better in person than it did on TV. It was brutal and ugly start to finish. You can read about my wild experience in Madison here.

Wisconsin fans demand Phil Longo be fired

Well, after resting and getting back to the content coal mines after returning from Madison, I decided to hop online and see how fans were processing the loss.

Spoiler alert: Not well!

Wisconsin’s offense continues to struggle, and fans have had enough of Phil Longo. (Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images)

It turns out having a bad offense in 2023, playing poorly against two weak teams to start the 2024 season and then getting blown out by Alabama hasn’t inspired much confidence in offensive coordinator Phil Longo.

A Reddit thread on the Wisconsin subreddit is demanding Longo be fired, and the reactions are hilarious. Check out some below, and let me know your thoughts at David.Hookstead@outkick.com:

  • I’ve never been impressed with Longo offense, I agree time for him to go
  • This felt like a weird match from day one, even if it seemed exciting on paper. You can modernize smashmouth football. The 49ers have done it. The ravens have done it. Michigan last year did it. I hope that’s where Fickell leans next which seems to align more with his general philosophy and leans into the historic strength of this team which is the line.
  • Air raid has won 0 championships. Ever.
  • There are some rumblings that Fickell doesn’t want Longo to be more aggressive. The validity of these rumblings, I don’t know. but I do agree the offense needs to change and I personally think the entire staff is suspect.
  • The evidence is in the play calling. I can’t say I watched a ton of North Carolina but I watched enough to know this wasn’t the offense. Fickell hired an Air Raid guy and is making him run a “Three Yards and a Cloud of Dust but with screen passes” offense. Also neither of the QBs can throw downfield (even 10 yards downfield) with any accuracy.
  • That air raid philosophy is the same reason we can’t pick up short yardage, run downhill, take a snap under center, or threaten play action
  • Well, his philosophy is no good and doesn’t win.
  • Tressel needs to get on the same bus.
  • Phil Longo is the college version of Luke Getsy. He schemes for the players he wishes he had over the ones he does have. That’s not to say our players are bad, they just don’t fit that scheme. That’s why the Badgers had success before is because the coaches knew how to make the most of the players they had.
  • Yeah, Longo hasn’t done well here. We can’t get the ball to our main receivers, just our slot receivers. Our running schemes are poor. I miss our great counter plays. Also,  Running out of shot gun in 3rd or 4th and short is dumb. Where have our tight ends been in the running game? Etc etc
  • It’s fine to not have a fully formed identity, but what signs are there of any identity even forming on the field?
  • And we barely beat sh*t teams from FCS. We’re gonna get asses handed to us l year in Big 10 play.
  • Time for Fickle and Longo to pack their bags and head back to the sh*tty conference the came from.

Here are a few more from Reddit:

  • The Phil Longo experiment is officially a failure in Madison. Independent of play call success, the decision to take fullbacks off the roster and eliminate and jumbo package/under-center snaps has completely bastardized Wisconsin football. It’s unrecognizable.
  • Been stewing on this take since 3:00pm Saturday. Phil Longo needs to show me something by the time we hit Penn State in late October or I’m out because this whole…take what the defense gives us…only works when you have guys who can do that. We don’t. Full-Stop.
  • I was under no delusion that they would win, but can we consider the Phil Longo experiment a failure now? Like running short yardage plays out of shotgun is just a bad idea. Honestly, same with Mike Tressel. The defense is horrible. Can’t defend the run at all.
  • What took 28 years to build, Phil Longo tore down in 1 season with promises built on lies.
  • Phil Longo will be gone at the end of the season. Luke Fickell will get one more year after this. Then the Jim Leonhard era will begin in Madison.

While not everyone is in agreement that Longo should be cut loose (I’m not ready to have him fired just yet), it is clear frustrations have boiled over.

Through three games, Wisconsin has 547 passing yards and a *GRAND TOTAL* of two passing touchdowns. Is this the offense fans were promised when Luke Fickell was hired?

Getting blown out by Alabama is one thing. Struggling against the likes of Western Michigan and South Dakota is totally unacceptable, and patience has run out.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and analyze every single thing Longo does, but I will say there was one play against Alabama that was without question beyond defensible and should get any coach fired. 

Early in the game, the Badgers went for it on fourth and inches. When I say inches, I’m talking about four to six inches. The kind of situation where the QB just has to lean forward. What does Longo dial up?

A fourth down formation that had Braedyn Locke in shotgun and the play was blown up in the backfield before it had any chance.  Who in their right mind goes shotgun on fourth and inches? That’s the kind of stuff that I simply won’t defend or tolerate. I can accept conservative play calling. That was simply idiotic.

Some Wisconsin football fans want Phil Longo fired. (Photo by Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

I don’t have the answers. I wish I did. I wish I knew who to call to fix whatever is broken, but I simply do not. For now, we all suffer together going through whatever the current hell of an existent Wisconsin fans are in. Let me know what you think at David.Hookstead@outkick.com.