Two-minute drill: Washington State’s keys to victory against No. 19 Wisconsin

PULLMAN – Here’s what to watch for when Washington State hosts No. 19 Wisconsin on Saturday evening.

When Wisconsin has the ball …Scouting Wisconsin’s offense this year is a little tricky. The Badgers feature one of the country’s best running back tandems, Braelon Allen and Chez Mellusi, but they’re also running a new offense – an Air Raid attack.

That’s thanks to new offensive coordinator Phil Longo, who has transformed Wisconsin’s offense. He’s plenty happy to run the ball – who wouldn’t with those two guys in the fold? – but a giant reason why the Badgers enjoyed so much success on that front last week, in a 38-17 season-opening win over Buffalo, is because they had more space with which to work.

Last season, when Washington State took down Wisconsin in Madison, the Cougars knew what to expect. The Badgers wanted to run the ball. They were not coy about it. So WSU stacked the box and limited Allen to 98 yards on 21 carries, all things considered an exceptional showing from the Cougars’ defense.

Now, though, the Badgers are a real threat to throw the ball. Last week, quarterback Tanner Mordecai, a transfer from SMU, spread it out and completed passes to seven receivers (including Allen, who hauled in seven receptions). More important, Wisconsin lined up in formations with three and four receivers, thinning Buffalo’s box and opening up running lanes for Allen and Mellusi.

Check out this formation. Want to guess what happened?

That play resulted in an 89-yard touchdown run from Mellusi.

How about this formation. Any idea what happened here?

This play also resulted in a huge running gain, a 37-yarder from Allen, who displayed the combination of size and speed that makes him so lethal.

That’s the challenge facing the Cougars, who will have to strike a balance: How do they honor the Badgers’ spread formation and respect their passing game – but also limit Allen and Mellusi? That keyed their win last year. Now they’ll have to do it while thinking about Mordecai and his receivers down the field.

One way WSU might pull it off is by getting consistent pressure on Mordecai. If edges Ron Stone Jr. and Brennan Jackson can get to Mordecai, particularly without bringing extra men on blitzes, they might force the Badgers to lean more on the rushing game. That comes with its own challenges, considering WSU’s two starting linebackers, Devin Richardson and Kyle Thornton, don’t have a wealth of experience in this defense, but at least then the Cougars could focus on taking one thing away.

“That’s a challenge. That means we gotta come rise to the occasion,” Thornton said. “I would say that I think we’ve got two better running backs here – shout-out Nakia (Watson) and (Jaylen) Jenkins – but absolutely. Linebackers, our direct component is the running back. So any time we’ve got some good running backs coming in, we know it’s our time to rise, and we’ll be ready for it.”

When Washington State has the ball …The Cougars will always try to air it out and score, but how extreme they get will likely depend on how their defense is faring.

If WSU’s defense is finding ways to bottle up Allen and Mellusi, the Cougars might experiment in their running game, trying to free up Nakia Watson and Jaylen Jenkins, who never got going last week against Colorado State. If not, Ward will probably direct an offense that looked like the one that surfaced in Fort Collins, an approach that almost entirely abandons the run in favor of passes.

In either case, Ward will need to be on top of his game. He looked like it last week. In that one, he completed 37 of 49 passes for 451 yards and three touchdowns. Thanks to his 40 rushing yards, he now leads the country in total offense. To beat a Wisconsin secondary that looked vulnerable at times last week, yielding two touchdown passes to Buffalo, Ward will probably need to combine both parts of his game.

At the heart of that effort will be the Cougars’ offensive line. Last week in Fort Collins, WSU used seven offensive linemen, and if we trust Washington State’s depth chart (which did not change at all from Week 1 to Week 2), the Cougars will use the same personnel: left tackle Esa Pole, left guard Ma’ake Fifita (with Christian Hilborn mixed in), center Konner Gomness, right guard Brock Dieu, right tackles Fa’alili Fa’amoe and Christy Nkanu.

“We have to be able to run the ball more efficiently than we did last week,” WSU coach Jake Dickert said. “That’s probably, I would say, the biggest takeaway on offense, is we have to be able to move people. And we have to play fast and aggressive. I’ve talked a million times – when we got a little hesitant because of what (the Rams) were doing, then when they weren’t moving, we weren’t moving bodies. So it’ll be a big emphasis this week.”