Statement Win: Wisconsin Badgers and Colton Joseph SHOCK Penn State, Change Season Narrative!

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1:02What is the appropriate reaction for Badger fans talking about that big win in Ambi Valley? That's next Lockdown Badgers, let's go. You are Lockdown Badgers. Your daily podcast on the Wisconsin Badgers. Out of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Is going on Badger fans. Looking to lockdown Badgers. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Thank you for being here and a part of this community. I'm your Australian Air. And today's episode, the importance of this Michigan State game. The Colton Joseph experience. But first big picture against Penn State. Joining us as we try to get him on as much as possible because Curtis Holland has a tremendous perspective on this stuff. Curtis, we talked a little after the game. We're texting you in the game with Penn State. I wanted to start here. What is the appropriate reaction coming off this for Badger fans? It's a massive win, but it's also just one game. I mean, be excited. This is the first time we've beaten Penn State in Penn State since what was it? 2003?

2:02I mean, you know, it's, it's, we haven't beaten Penn State since, I think 2011 maybe. So be excited. Like, why would you not be excited? That's my question. Like, if you, if you can't get excited after this victory, there's something wrong with you as a fan. That's all I'll say to that. I mean, you know, at the end of the day from a big picture perspective, it's one game. You're three and one. We still got, you know, eight more games to go. So it's still, you know, it's still a lot of things we got to improve. It's not like we played particularly well. So, but yeah, I'd say be excited. This is one of Brian Shetty. Usually we do our questions late, but he wanted to throw this one to you Curtis. Do you feel like the Penn State game was like a monkey up the back more for the team or for the fans? I'd say both, but more for the team. And the reason I say for the team is because this is the kind of victory that you need that can change the season. The best example I can think of is 2016, you know, we're coming into play LSU. We're on ranked their rank number five. Now, LSU ended up being eight and four, seven and five, firing less miles. But that game propelled us into a 10, you know, into season big 10 championship

3:04birth. We ended up going 11 and three that year. That again, in turn, propelled us into the 2017 where we went 12 and 0 wins like this can turn an entire campaign around. People had questions about Paul Chris going into 2016 and everybody forgets that, you know, he was six and six every single year at Pitt. He was an offense coordinator that sometimes people were scratching their heads at the play, he called, right? So it was one of those things. Oh, and he's also just very soft-smoking. That always never really played well. So, you know, it's one of those things where like going into that season, people were wondering, hey, can this guy do it? You have another new defensive coordinator. We lost a random and, you know, turn around and we end up in an incredibly successful year after we win that game. Then we go into Michigan State, week four, and absolutely drowns him. And that propelled us to a top five matchup. We stayed in the top 10 after losing to Michigan and Ohio State on consecutive weeks. That's what that did for the season that year. And so again, you know, I think we've got a lot deeper hold to climb out of in general as a team and as a program right now. And there's more that I would argue we have to prove before we should be, you know, ranked or top 25 or whatever.

4:05I do think we have the caliber of a top 25 team, but I think that there's a lot more meat left on the bone in terms of what we can do. And this is a win. That's the first step in sort of getting to the players. Hey, your work is paying off. What you're doing is paying off. You guys are doing the right stuff. You just did something. No bad. Your team has done it in 20 something years, right? That's a big deal. And I think it goes a long way to help the team out this year. Yeah, I love a lot of what you said there. I want to start with the last part you said. It's eventually you do need to see as a human being something go right. Like if you're a caveman and every day you go out on the hunt and you never bring home mammoth meat, eventually you're just going to stop doing the things. Getting that win I think is massive to get that monkey off the team shoulder. It shows that it's working excitement and that can propel you into different things. The other thing I wanted to throw your way and I talked about this before because now there's a lot of discussion in the discourse nationally. Well, maybe Penn State's not that good. Maybe, you know, it's almost discrediting in a way Wisconsin's win. And then they tied into the LSU win that you brought up and they say, and look at LSU LSU wasn't actually that good that that year, right?

5:06They finished seven and five, whatever it was. And what I always tell people Curtis, I'm curious on your take here. Teams don't remain the same throughout the year. You, this Penn State team that you beat was, was undefeated. They were feeling themselves. It was at home. It was their big 10 opener. Regardless of how they finish, like you're getting them at their best moment right now. And I think, Rick, again, regardless of how they finished, like there's something to be said about beating a team when they're up, when they're three and a, when they're in their big 10 opener. And I don't think that gets talked about enough. It's like LSU and LSU came to that game. Regardless of how they finished. I think we took some of the way down to their season. Absolutely. And you know, this is something like my dad, old school football player, I was just say, this is like, you know, it's one game at a time, right? Anybody can get up for one game, right? So anybody can be good, you know, at any moment, right? Like and the thing that that for me with this is a week ago, what would you have thought of Penn State? Second most difficult game on the schedule, right? A week ago, Penn State, all they might be a plent playoff team, like they got an experienced roster, Rocco backs one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the, in the country.

6:08Like a week ago, this team was the best team and we're going to lose by 30 points nationally across the board, go to every freaking person who's saying, hey, Wisconsin, they just really be not so good Penn State team. Every single one of them who's saying that said that team was going to beat us by 30, right? Then they don't. But no one's actually really looked at it. So they're like, oh, well, obviously Penn State is not that good. Well, here's the thing. We didn't play a good game. We played horrible. Like if Penn State played a bad game, they should really feel bad about themselves because we played a horrible game and we still came back and won in their house. We threw basically two pick sixes and a third fourth quarter, we just, it wasn't hard for us. So at the end of the day, it's like, how can you look at that game and think Wisconsin played at its best? It's no work close to playing at its best. We played a horrible game and still won, right? So yeah, you could say Penn State is not as good as we thought. I would agree with that having actually watched them now. I would agree. Yeah, they're probably not a playoff caliber team. They're probably a decent top 25 caliber team.

7:09I would argue there where I always date spin, right? I think that's what they are. But let's go to the 2016 example. LSU does anybody care that they didn't finish ranked when you look at the 2016 season? Does anybody care that they weren't relevant that propelled our team into basically three ten win seasons? Does anybody care about that? Does that matter? Like that's my whole point. Like who cares if this team goes six and six or ten and two? It doesn't matter. If we can build off this and make our season a memorable season, who cares what happens Penn State? No, 100% agree with that. And on the other part of this is, yeah, Rocco back to play well. This is something you and I talked about before the this show, but why didn't he play well? Right? Like the context behind that matters. Didn't play well because this defense had a morale. He didn't play well because this defense was moving him everywhere. He didn't play well because Mike Trussell confuses him. You know, there's an element of this that the badgers caused Penn State. The other part of this is I've listened to several Penn State podcasts. Curtis after the game and it's like, oh, this Penn State team is just not very good. Maybe this was constantly a lot better than everybody saw. Maybe that's the answer that you need to be searching for from here.

8:11And I thought they made them uncomfortable. I do want to ask you this and then we're going to get into a bunch more about specifics about next week. You mentioned we played a terrible game. And I think almost absolutely right. A lot of penalties, three turnovers. How much of that though is in our DNA? Because this team does have a habit of time shooting itself in the foot. Like I don't think it's this is not a one game sample size of that. If you know what I mean, so how much of that can be fixed going forward? How much of that is just kind of who we are? Well, I think a lot more of it can be fixed than people think. You know, I but I do also think there is a little bit of a never say die attitude with this team, which you know, at the end of the day, would you take overly cautious never making mistakes versus a little bit of never say die? High risk high reward. We've we've had a number of plays this year that have been boomer bust. And I think that you know what at the end of the day, it's like one, it's actually just fun to watch a little bit, you know, maybe not the greatest four year, you know, you're hard or anything like that. But but outside of that, you know, I think that having a little bit of that, just like gunslinger mentality where it's like, like, we're going to take our

9:12shot. We're going to leave it all on the table and, you know, no one's going to leave the game feeling like they left anything behind. I'd rather have that than maybe more of a conservative play, which you could argue is what Penn State was doing. They probably left a lot on the table. Maybe they would look back on that and say, hey, you know, there was some opportunity, you know, that deep shot down the sideline where back thunder through it that they wish they could have had back, right? And so I'd rather be the team that that kind of takes those chances. Maybe, you know, wins are diced by the sword when we were four and eight last year, we were five and seven the year before that. And it allows us to go into Penn State and win a game. I'd rather do that than not. Now that said, I'd also rather not throw three interceptions. So I do think there are things where you can be like, Colton, dude, just, you're a fast player, just run the ball. Just run. You don't need to throw it. You know, I'm saying like there's three defenders over there. Just run the ball, you know, that's all I would say of that. Well, we're going to talk about Colton, Joseph. Next, the Colton, Joseph experience, you texted me something I thought was kind of funny and the is a rollercoaster. He's a gunslinger. There's going to be ups or downs. We're going to talk about how much better you can get this year. That's coming up next plus the importance of Michigan State on lockdown

10:12badges with the one and only in the great Curtis Holland. But first, let me tell you about our tremendous, tremendous partners of the show. And as always, let me say, thank you for tuning into lockdown badges today. It's episode brought to you by our great incredible friends over at five hour internship because college football is back. Sports are back. But sometimes you need a little bit of energy to get you through the day, whether it's watching sports all day, creating content, doing, you know, things in the morning and in the evening, so you can get your, your to-do list done while still getting your sports in. And if you got a sweet tooth and you need that kind of simple, easy energy, five hour energies you got you covered with the cotton candy, five hour energy shot the Brick's nostalgic flavor back in a whole new way. It's a classic cotton candy case that you remember. I remember it. You remember it. But with a tasty caffeine boost zero sugar, it's a quick, easy way to satisfy your sweet craving. We'll keep you think simple and on the go and convenient. Again, throw it in the pocket, throw it into the car on the way to do whatever you need to do. No sugar, simple, easy, clean energy with that cotton candy flavor. Bring on the sweetness with cotton candy, five hour energy shots available online

11:15now at fivehourenergy.com or over at Amazon. College football is back. So Hilton caught in me. The superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwink up call it 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it. When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton for this day. Here's let's talk a little bit about the Colton Joseph experience. Three picks, but then he plays one of the better second half's fourth quarters of quarterback play we've seen at Wisconsin, unflappable, incredibly gutsy. But super inconsistent up this point. If you finish 18 at 38, who is who is he going forward? Is he the guy you saw on the fourth quarters? He got in the first half? Is it all in one package and you just got to live with it?

12:16Question mark. Oh, you're muted. I think it's all of it. I think it's, but I think it can, it can, the percentage of how much of what will vary, right? I think, I think there's probably were some moments in this game where, you know, one of the throws. I think the first interception, you got to, you got to throw that high. You know, those are just like little things that like you can work on and get better at. That's one of those where I see what they were trying to do. I don't know if I don't throw that. You never really want to throw to a, you know, over the top of a defender in the screen. But you still have to actually throw over the defender, right? I think the, you know, it was named Tony Rojas, sort of on Penn State, phenomenal athlete. So, you know, that's also just a phenomenal athlete being a phenomenal athlete. So, but, you know, again, probably a questionable decision. I think the second interception, at least what Hilton had said is that that was his fault because he should cut the route short. There was another route that Hilton cut short on a fade to the end zone. And I think it was the second half or in the second quarter that he just stopped running for some reason.

13:18And, you know, then he picked up running again. This defense or a defender was able to run up to him. And then the ball was just slightly overthrown. But if he had kept just running, it probably would have been a touchdown, right? So, there were some of moments that Hilton had that weren't entirely on Hilton. But then, you know, you see some bad plays like the third pick. That was just a bad decision. You, he had no arm strength. He wasn't going to be able to fit the ball where he wanted to fit it. There was the one screen to the right side. And I think the fourth quarter where he just threw it at the dirt. You know, so there's moments like that where it's like, oh man, like, you know, this, this is the kind of stuff you can't have. And, you know, but what's encouraging to me is that he not one time let it stop. He just came back out and he just kept singing memory of a, I think someone said memory of a goldfish. Like just kept throwing the ball, you know, kept getting back up. Never for a second doubted that they could come back down and win. You know, you could see it on the sideline. You could see it in the way that they were talking in the body language. There was never, there was not one moment where this team quit. And I think the thing for me that, you know, Colton aside, I think the thing for me that stood out to most, that game is if just watch fickle on the sideline, the whole game.

14:20He doesn't panic one time, like at all. The whole time he felt like he was, all right, yeah, this is part of the part of the game plan. I mean, I don't think it was part of the game. But it just kind of that was the vibe he gave. And so that to me was very encouraging. That's kind of the thing where it's like, okay, this team in a hostile environment down 17, everything's going the way it's gone for the last three, four years. Like this just and even years before that because a Chris team would have folded in this moment, right? We've seen that happen too. So for years, this is what I'm not going the way it did. And yet the whole game we're consistent, we're even killed. We're in the game. We don't stop fighting. The team doesn't quit. No one gets down on each other. They don't get mad at Colton for throwing picks. They don't get mad at, you know, someone from missing a block or running around short. Everybody's just locked in. And that to me was by far the most impactful thing on this game because that tells me that this team is never going to stop fighting. And those are the worst teams to play when you're the other team. Yeah, it's team's tougher for sure. I think you mentioned some of the teams from years past, but I think you just go back to last year and you see the team's response against Iowa on the road similar, right?

15:22I think it's actually very similar. You throw a couple of early picks that you get down. You're on the road, a great home crowd. Then look at the response from last year against Iowa. First of the response this year against Penn State is night and day. And I think so much of that your team takes on the traits of your leaders and your one of your leaders is always going to be your quarterback. It's always going to be that guy. And this team is resilient. They're tough. I think that's a really, really well said point. And it matters. Intangibles matter football. Charisma leadership. Those things toughness. Those things really matter in football more than a lot of sports. It matters. Having a quarterback that's gutsy that's going to take hits that's going to put himself out there. And he's got to get better. I think to me, and I'm curious what you think on this, I think they're asking him to do a little too much. Like I think 38 passes and every game is going to be different. And I think the game script dictates that and maybe if Abu Salman doesn't get hurt, it's not 38 passes. I still think 38 passes is too much. I think you're asking him to do too much. I think Colton shows have dialed back a little bit with a little more Dupuri, a little more running game, a little more and a little more helpful receivers.

16:27There's like five drops. I think that's fair to point out as well. But I think him in a little less of a passing game benefits him. Do you like the Jeff Grimes game plan so far? And again, or for nation. Yeah. So there's. Jeff Grimes to me is kind of like, I think there's a lot of hit and miss. I think there's sometimes where I look at him, like, what are you doing? Like I don't understand what this is supposed to be. And there's other times where I'm like, that's really creative. It's effective. Right. I think one thing that I haven't really looked at yet is I'd want to track his game like over the course of the game play calling. Like, how does one play set up for another play later in the game? And that's what I'd be curious about because I do wonder if some of the looks that he gives are specifically that. And you know, he, I think. Calls, he calls plays that are designed to, I mean, obviously he calls plays that design to work, but he calls plays that are going to be effective if they're executed properly. Right. And I think that that's, you know, where some of that, you know, hit or miss comes in because if we don't execute him properly, then it looks like, you know, terrible.

17:32Right. With the, with the reliance on Colton Joseph Saturday, I kind of feel like you had to. I do say, I will say I wish we ran the ball a little bit more in the second half. You started to see we were wearing on the Penn State defensive front. And I think we could have ran the ball. I mean, both running backs, Saba, Sama and the pre-average over six charge carry, which is another thing I don't think people realize. We were getting six charge carry on the ground with. Right. And so, you know, I think that we can probably use a little bit more of that. But I also think that Colton was just allowing that defense to stay open. You know, we kept the field spread enough that we could get six, seven yards of play, have more success than Penn State was having offensively, at least statistically. And, you know, that allowed us to, again, move the ball, keep Penn State's defense kind of all over the place. I mean, they were confused too. You saw a few plays where they didn't know where to go. They're lying back because they didn't know what a whole fill, right? And if we just run down hill at them, I mean, you know, we kind of see how that turns out a lot of times. So, you know, I think, I think at the end of the day, I don't, I don't really mad about using Colton the way we did.

18:33I think that this week coming up when we get in a Michigan state, we're going to have to do that because the strength of this Michigan state team is actually their run defense. But I would say that, you know, at the end of the day, I'm not mad at it. And what it gives me confidence in again, when have we had a quarterback that we've put the game, the game in his hands and said, go in this game. The fact that we're willing to do that. And then it did, to me, is very encouraging as well as cost. Like the second part of your statement there, because when have we had a quarterback where we put the game in his hands? Oh, lots of times. Thought that that. When did it work? Oh, not that many, really. Like there's been several times we put the ball in reading locks hands or even go down the list. It hasn't worked. Yeah, I hear that. And I think every game script is a little individual, right? You adjust as the game goes on and Colton Joseph was getting in a rhythm. And certainly you can't, you want it works. I just think going forward more balance is going to be important. And I think it's going to help Colton Joseph be even better. Question from Chris. And you can start with this one. Does Grimes not have enough confidence in a running game or too much confidence in Colton Joseph? So this is going to be an extension of where we went.

19:33But do you think it's a. Do you think they think they can run the ball against a stacked box if they have to or do they are they not that confident is for offence a line and the running back? Yeah. I think their confidence is in the RPO game. That's why I think their confidence is there. They're like, like, here's what I think about this offense. They're trying to take where the openings are. If they just straight up line line up and run the ball, you know, the way Paul Chris and all these teams have old like that can work. But is it going to be the most effective? Are we going to be able to actually run our offense the way we want to run our offense? Which are offense they want to run it in space. You know, they want to have misdirection. They want to have, you know, you know, reads and open players run down the field. That kind of stuff. That's what they want to do. That's how they want to run their offense. And the run game is an integral part of that. But it's not the foundational piece. I think the foundational piece is is Colton Joseph, right? He's who the offense circles around. And so I think they're calling game plans around what their offense is centered around. And I think that's all it is. Like as a Wisconsin fan, do we want to run the ball more? Yeah, absolutely. I want to see us run the ball more. I want to see us get down hillmore.

20:34I want to see us be able to do that in the big 10. But more than that, I want to win games. So if we continue to win games doing this, then you know what at the end of the day, it's like we're doing what we need to do to win games. That's good enough for me. Nick asks, how do we feel about running back? The great Nick Hitchens, by the way, I'm starting to feel like there's no running back one. It's played the hot hand game to game. It feels like I don't be to sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. No, I was just saying, I don't think this offense is designed for a feature running back like we used to have. I think this is like an NFL offense where you have two running backs that can both, you know, tote the rock and maybe have different slightly different skill sets. And I think Abu Sama before he got hurt. I mean, again, he was average, you know, over six yards of carry. Like he was, I think he was going to have a good game had he not gotten hurt. So I'm not looking at him like, oh, he didn't play well. No, he played fine. He's got hurt. I look at, you know, Dupree. I think that was his best game. I've seen from Dupree, you know, since he came to Wisconsin. So I think we have two really solid run backs. Do we have a rail in Allen? Do we have a, you know, John Taylor? Do we have a Melvin Gordon? No, but I don't think we need that in this particular offense. Yeah, I agree. I think you have two and then you have two situational guys that you'd like to use based on down a distance.

21:37I've, they clearly like Palmer getting him on the edge, a jet sweep here and there. And then they like Jackson as a power guy when he's healthy, but you have two guys. I don't even think it's 1a1b. I think it's 1a1a. I think 2pree. And Abu Sama are both the guys. They're going to use those two and then they're going to sprinkle in the other two game time situation. You know, those kind of things and to keep the lead dog's fresh. I 100% agree with this. I'll say one more quick second. We're going back with the great Curtis on Curtis. We got to talk with the importance of this Michigan State game. And that's going up next. I'm locked on that just first day quick second to tell you about our tremendous friends over at square. Let me tell you about our tremendous friends over at square whether you're running a packed game day spot. A restaurant or you're growing a business square gives others the tools to run their business without making things more complicated. Square brings payments to inventory payroll invoices, customer insights and more together into one connected system. Whether you're running a one location business or you're expanding into multiple locations square gives you the tools to manage, sell and grow. Don't need an IT team to figure it all out.

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23:44You can state right so you're coming off this massive win on the road homecoming against a Michigan state team that hasn't outside of a little bit of against Notre Dame looks down. Pat Fitzgerald first year you have a bye next week. You can tell where I'm going with this. This game really matters. Talk to me about the important Michigan state. Yeah, I mean, I think it's important because if you're looking at some stats, it's something about 50% to 60% of teams that have an emotional road win, maybe an upset the following week over 60% don't cover the spread. Right. And so you know, there's obviously that chance for a let down the good news here and you know, I hate to kind of caveat is like this, but Michigan state might be one of the worst teams we have remaining on the schedule from a talent perspective. They actually are the worst remaining big 10 team on the schedule, if you just look at talent ratings and things like that, all the stuff Brian Smith loves to talk about. And so, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, okay, of all the teams to come off of a heavily emotional game. This is probably a good one to catch us. One of the things that, you know, Michigan state is really good at is the run defense, the run defense plays incredibly well. They held Notre Dame down to a large degree, which, you know, again Notre Dame, obviously being the only team that beat us.

24:57But I think that again, winning this game, I don't think it like I don't think it moves a needle on whether or not we should be or shouldn't be ranked top 25. This is a game we should win. This is an opportunity where Wisconsin shows up and we're supposed to do something. And so can we execute when we're supposed to execute? That's the question because under fickle, it's been all over the place, you know, there's been hit or miss. I do feel good about this game. I do think we win this game. But again, it's one of those things like, can you show me that, okay, we just got a big huge emotional win. You know, everybody's jazzed up. Can we get back refocused? Can we execute what we need to execute? Can we not have three picks this time? You know, can we win the game? You know, in a controlled manner as opposed to having to play catch up or having to fight it out in the fourth quarter. The word that keeps coming back to me for this game and his consistency. And you hit on it without saying the word, where it's been kind of all over the map in the Luke fickle era, you know, good game. And if you game the this and that, I don't need to see 45 to 10 anything like that that I just want to see a clean consistent game.

25:59And I want to see consistency from last week's win into this week's game, right? I don't want to start in a hole. I don't want picks. I don't want to budget turnovers. If you win a clean game and it's like 27, 13, 27, 17, I'm going to feel pretty good about it because it is hard to refocus 18 to 23 year old young men. That is an actual challenge. I think people overrate sometimes. I want to clean and you talk execution. Yes. I just want to clean well executed game where it looks like you're focused. You're taking steps forward. You clean some things up. And then you head into the by week with a ton of momentum. I'm going to feel a little weird dude if we win, but it once again feels really disjointed. There's a bunch of penalties or sort of returnovers. I want to see a clean execution game. That's my biggest thing this week with Michigan State outside of the win, obviously. Right. And you know, when you look at Michigan State and you look at past Fitzgerald in general, past Fitzgerald's record in Madison is pretty abysmal. I think he's maybe got one win in 16, 20 years as a coach at Northwestern there. And if you look at, you know, yeah, we had a lot of games in the late 2010s, where we go to Evanston and we would lose or whatever.

27:04But if you look at all those games, I think Wisconsin's turnover margin was like averaging, you know, basically three giveaways a game. Every one of those games they had a senior quarterback, every one of those games they had some senior late in defense, really high, like older team. And you know, usually those were the years for Wisconsin, where we weren't necessarily on our best version of ourselves. And so, you know, this game coming in here, I feel confident that, you know, I don't think you're going to see this performance where we throw five picks in this Northwestern game. And we lose, you know, on just like some wild Northwestern voodoo that always happened. I think you see a good Wisconsin performance. I don't think that I think that this defense, like how the defense played at Penn State, I think that will remain consistent. Right. And so that gives me, you know, hope because I don't think Michigan State's offense is going to be able to really do it. I just I don't see them being able to ball. They lost their best running back. You know, their quarterback is, I mean, watching him last week, first of the brass, just not going to get it done.

28:05So I feel good from a defensive perspective. The question is offense. And how much worse can you get than, you know, starting with basically two picks, sixes and three interceptions at Penn State and still wouldn't need the game. That's what makes me think like, you know, it's hard for me to really see. As long as we just like show up a little bit, it's hard for me to see where the loss comes from in this game. Not saying it's not possible. I just I feel really good about where this team that we still have to perform. We don't have to show up. We still have to execute. We still have to do what we have to do. But at the end of the day, I think one thing that's different about this team, there may be some of Fickles past teams is that this is from an athletic perspective. It's a categorically different team. You know, one of the things I made this note before our show, when you watched Penn State, if you take away our turnovers and you look at just the stats and the performance granted Penn State, maybe plays different, maybe we don't have the same fourth quarter burst. But if you look at the way the game played outstats, success rate Wisconsin, kind of dominated that game sneakily. Yeah. And that's what I think a lot of people aren't seeing. The other thing I would argue is we dominated while playing horribly.

29:08And on top of that, if you look at that Iowa or the Penn State team, we play, well, actually I'll kind of give it give the lead away. My question to you was, if you look at Penn State, is it more talented than Iowa State was? Yeah. That's it. And yeah, and you look at their starters and their top people, we're all returners from Iowa State. That Iowa State beat Iowa two years straight. Same Iowa that beat us by 50. That's the team we just beat at their home. So that's what I'm trying to tell people is like this is a categorically different team. It is a categorically different team. And that's why I think when I say don't get too excited, we still have to execute. There's a lot of things that can go wrong. But you see the belief, you see the grit, you see the effort and you see what could be there if we put it all together. And so maybe we do this week. We don't, but I do think that this is an important week and us getting back to that consistency. Yes, that's a much better word than we sort of words outing it.

30:11No, but the context is great and I love your point of. The archetype of the team that has beaten Iowa the last couple of years and we just went and beat them. Like we should, this is a great first step. And I'm just, I think all Badger fans just want that second step to follow accordingly. And that is this week, right? You can't year four. We keep setting your four. It is what it is. It's your four. You have to now strain steps forward and you can't be a step forward to step back. That's why this game is so, so important. I think for the team for the Badger psyche for the program for the, I think of the national discourse. You know what's consumables of talking point this week for a really good reason. Now you got to back it up heading into the by week and nobody's going to be front page news if you beat Michigan State at home. But it's such an important moment, I think specifically heading into the by week. Because then I think you have your three toughest games of the year coming up. Right? You have USC Iowa and UCLA. And you need that momentum going to the by week to set yourself up for success down the stretch. Really, really quick on the way up door, but I love this question from Bob Q.

31:12He just says, what's the mood imagination of Harris doesn't make that catch and run if the different is the difference between a good and a bad team one play. And I love the idea behind this because I thought about this as well. And I think I mentioned in our show Curtis, if we if that play didn't happen in Penn State Wednesday, by the way, where we almost rally. What is our talking point? Our talking point is you shot yourself in the foot again. I can't believe we were still here. And now we're talking what is like we are back. And obviously we're fans in the fan and we swing wildly between these things. There's certainly a middle ground unit. I've talked about they have to get better at the clean things up. But what are we talking about right now if that last play just doesn't happen? Yeah, I mean, here's where I'm at. And this is where I'm a little bit different than most fans. I'm I'm not saying we're back. I'm saying we have the potential to be back. I'm saying we have probably the highest athletic caliber team we've had in the last ten years. That's what I'm saying. That doesn't mean we're back. It just means we have the potential to be back. And you need to see that performance continue to happen. We've had the athletes for a while. Like when we would come on here in the office, you talk about athletes, talk about what we couldn't couldn't do.

32:14That's not wrong. We have the potential to be that good. Right? No one was sitting before Indiana two years ago saying they had an athletically caliber team to win a national championship. But they did because they got the most out of that team. Right? We haven't gotten the most out of our team and who the hell knows how long. And so my point is this like we have the potential. We've had the potential. Now we got to use it and do it. This is where I go back to what Brian Smith said the preseason. This is like year one because we finally got the pieces in place to do what we need to do. We finally have them. Right? And now it's okay. Now we have them. Do we actually win? Right? Penn State's a good first step. How the rest of the season goes is is is what we'll know. If we can actually do that. Right? But at the end of the day, it's not about, oh, like once one, you know, thing is going to change the entirety of this team. It does from a confidence perspective. I think one of the things that caused longer to fail is that in our first game with longer, we missed two wide open touchdowns that were drops. That would have changed. I think the course of the season, right? In terms of what we believe we were capable of. Belief is a huge thing in college sports.

33:14I cannot emphasize how important belief is in college boards. Right? But again, I think the potential has been there. The opportunity is there now for us to capitalize on. That's what I would say. And if we had lost this game, I just said the same thing. We're right there. We played a horrible game, but the potential is right there. We have it. We just have to execute that right? And even in the win, I'm saying the same thing. The potential is there. It's right there. We just have to execute better. That's it. As always, man, incredibly measured and thoughtful responses from the one and only in the great Curtis Holland who. I don't know if I asked you this. You're not able to make our meet up this weekend, right? No, I'm not. I won't be at the game this weekend, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. That's such a ball. I'll be at the USC game if people want to go that one, but I'm not going to be at that one. That Michigan State game. But well, if you are making Michigan state, our meetups this weekend would love to see all of you. This has been locked on Badgers with the great Curtis Holland on Wisconsin as always. We'll definitely talk to all you guys tomorrow. Hey, it's Isaac Shade.

34:14Your host of Amazon Fire TV's college football kickoff. And Kenyan Barnard, Jesse Holly myself and the local host of the Locked On Podcast Network. Each week on Fire TV throughout the season to preview the biggest matchups across college football. Search college football kickoff on the Fire TV app.