MORE: The skinny on Wisconsin
Northwestern’s beleaguered offense is averaging only 11 points per game over its current three-game losing streak. The Wildcats currently rank 120th in the nation in scoring.
Next up for the Cats on Saturday is Wisconsin, which boasts the top-ranked defense in the country. The Badgers allow just 213.8 yards per game, and 54.7 rushing, the lowest numbers in the FBS. Teams score just 15.4 points per game against them.
So chances are that it won't be pretty in Madison.
But graduate transfer wide receiver Stephon Robinson Jr., one of the bright spots of an otherwise dark season, isn’t backing down from the challenge of facing the Badgers' elite defense.
"We just have to attack them, not play scared," he said. "Go up and make a play when the ball comes our way."
If only it were that simple. Northwestern’s offense has made several big plays this season, including 75- and 90-yard runs by Evan Hull. Consistently moving the ball has been the bigger issue.
Head coach Pat Fitzgerald hasn't made any final determinations yet about what’s wrong with the offensive side of his 2021 Wildcats.
"Well, we got three more weeks to go in the season, so before I make any statements on what we need to do and where we need to go, I'm going to let the final three chapters, and hopefully one more, be written," he said on Monday. "We've just got to be more consistent."
It's easy to point to 2019 as a comparison for the 2021 offense. Both units made moving the ball look like rocket science, and really struggled at the quarterback position.
This year Northwestern has tried Hunter Johnson, Andrew Marty and Ryan Hilinski at the position, all with mediocre-to-poor results. Marty has moved the ball at times better than any other QB, but last week, in his first start of the year, he threw three interceptions and missed some very makeable throws.
After that dreadful 2019 season, Fitzgerald singled out the quarterback position as the team's biggest weakness and vowed to fix it. Fixing it is exactly what he did by going out and getting Peyton Ramsey as a graduate transfer.
Ramsey was Northwestern's entire offense at times last season, using his legs when necessary while being a smart distributor of the ball in the passing game. Ramsey elected to not return to Northwestern and use his extra year of eligibility, leaving Northwestern with a void at the game's most important position. The aforementioned trio have yet to fill that void.
The quarterbacks haven't necessarily had a ton of help from the players around them. The receiving corps has been plagued with drops while the offensive line's pass protection has been leakier than a broken faucet.
Against Iowa last Saturday, the Wildcats racked up a mind-numbing 26 self-inflicted wounds, according to Fitzgerald. Making that many mistakes against a red-hot Wisconsin team could produce an epic beatdown.
"We were very critical of ourselves (Sunday) and we brought that to the guys (Monday)," Fitzgerald said. "We've moved the ball at times, not consistently enough; we obviously haven't finished with enough points in the red zone. We look at it as a collective inconsistency."
Back in 2019, Fitzgerald knew that the offense’s problem was the quarterback position. This year, the problem is a bit more widespread and complicated. The solution won’t be as simple, either.
