Skip to content

Ad Disclosure

Wisconsin stock report after 2023 regular season: What’s next for the Badgers?

Mark Kern

By Mark Kern

Published:

In the first year of the Luke Fickell era at Wisconsin, the Badgers were able to finish the regular season with a 7-5 record. There were a lot of ups and downs, and the team did have to deal with a lot of injuries on the offensive side of the ball.

The team was sitting at 5-5 heading into the game against Nebraska two games ago, but was able to win those games to finish bowl eligible. The Badgers got off to a 4-1 start, but then went on a 1-4 stretch. The offense really struggled over those last 5 games, averaging only 13 points during that span.

Getting bowl eligible this season is big, as it allows the team an extra month to continue to gain experience in Fickell’s system.

The Badgers now await for where their bowl destination will be. Here’s a stock report for Wisconsin with the regular season in the books:

Most improved: CB Ricardo Hallman

There will be a trend you will see in the report, but there are a lot of sophomores on Wisconsin that had terrific 2023 seasons. None of them had the year Hallman did, as he emerged as one of the best cornerbacks in all of college football.

He finished the season with 24 tackles, and was tied for 2nd in the country with 6 interceptions. Four of them came early in the season, including one that he returned 95 yards for a touchdown against Purdue. A big part of the reason why he didn’t have as many later in the season is because teams started to stop throwing the ball at him.

Hallman had an interception on Saturday in the win against Minnesota and has shown big-time playmaking ability from the secondary. Don’t be surprised if we are looking at a guy competing for the Jim Thorpe Award next year.

Biggest surprise: The Emergence of WR Will Pauling

In his freshman season, Pauling had only 12 catches for 122 yards and 0 touchdowns. However, he earned a bigger role this year, and rewarded the coaching staff with a very solid sophomore campaign.

This year, Pauling had 66 catches for 694 yards and 4 touchdowns, and the fact he was able to have that while playing with multiple quarterbacks makes it even more impressive.

He had 9 games this season with at least 51 yards, with 96 yards against Northwestern being his season-high. If Pauling is able to make the same improvements he did coming into this season, he could be in line for the first 1,000 receiving yard season for a Wisconsin receiver since Jared Abbrederis had 1,081 in 2013.

Best win

There weren’t any wins that necessarily jump off the page this year, but we are going to say the win against Nebraska was the biggest one. With that win, the Badgers became bowl eligible, and that loss was a huge reason why the Cornhuskers didn’t qualify for a bowl.

Wisconsin had to dig deep in this game, as the Badgers were down 14-0 at home after the first quarter. However, the team continued to battle, and were able to get the hard-fought, 24-17 overtime win.

Running back Braelon rushed the ball 22 times for only 62 yards, but he was able to score 2 touchdowns. His 2nd score helped give the Badgers the lead in overtime.

Worst loss

The worst loss on the season was the defeat to Northwestern, as the Badgers were dominated pretty much from start to finish. Wisconsin scored on the first drive to go up 3-0, but the Wildcats scored the next 24 points of the first half. The Badgers scored one final touchdown, but that was with 11 seconds in the game, just making the final score 24-10.

The Badgers are known as a rushing team, but Northwestern did a great job of not allowing Wisconsin to do anything on the ground. Wisconsin rushed the ball 24 times for only 86 yards, good for an average of 3.5 yards per carry.

Wisconsin did a great job of converting on 3rd downs, going 9-of-17. When it came to stopping the 3rd down, the Badgers couldn’t get off the field, as Northwestern finished 11-of-17.

Kudos to Wisconsin, because the team did recover from that loss to win its last 2 games of the season.

Play of the Year

It is only fitting that the MVP of the team had the play of the year, but that is the case here with defensive back Ricardo Hallman. In a game against Rutgers, Hallman took an interception back 95 yards for a touchdown.

Mark Kern