Report Card: PFF grades for Wisconsin football vs. Miami (OH)
How did the Badgers grade out in their Week 1 win over Miami (OH) according to ProFootball Focus?
The Wisconsin football team kicked off its 2025 campaign with a 17-0 victory over Miami (OH). While the offense took a bit to make plays, the defense came out hot and flew around the field all game long, dominating the Redhawks while allowing just 117 total yards and not one third-down conversion all game.
ProFootball Focus is a sports analytics company that focuses on thorough analysis of the National Football League (NFL) and NCAA Division I football. The site provides player grades on a 0-100 scale for every player on every play for NFL and NCAA teams.
The grading scale looks like this:
90+ = Elite
80.0 - 89.9 = Good/High Quality
70.0 - 79.9 = Above Average
60.0 - 69.9 = Average
50.0 - 59.9 = Below Averge
49.9 and lower = Poor
So how did PFF grade the Badgers in their Week 1 win?
Team Grades
Offense
Offensively, PFF graded the Badgers’ offense as ‘average’ with a grade of 70.0 (average).
When you break down the offensive grades, the area in which the Badgers earned the highest grade was run blocking with a grade of 77.6 (average). Running was next at 70.4, then pass blocking at 67.9 (below average). The worst grade on offense was passing, where the Badgers graded out as ‘poor’ with a 36.0 grade.
That passing grade is split between the two quarterbacks, Billy Edwards Jr. and Danny O’Neil, who came on in relief of Edwards in the second quarter. Edwards Jr. finished with a passing grade of 51.0, while O’Neil managed just a grade of 32.2. You may be wondering why O’Neil’s grade is so low; turnover-worthy plays are a big part of that. He had two turnover-worthy plays, which accounted for 7.7% of his attempts.
Not that it’s completely his fault, but O’Neil was also sacked three times.
Defense
Unsurprisingly, the defense graded out much higher than the offense. Overall, PFF gave the Badgers’ overall defense an 83.5 (good/high quality). While you’d think the pass rush would be the highest-graded aspect of the defense, it was actually pass coverage that graded out the highest for the Badgers with an 80.4 (good/high quality).
The pass rush graded out as a 78.5 (above average), while tackling and run defense graded out as 69.6 and 74.6, respectively.
It’s encouraging that the run defense graded as highly as it did, especially considering Dequan Finn is an outstanding running quarterback, which is something the Badgers struggled mightily with last season, grading above the 70.0 mark just once last season when they had an 81.8 against Northwestern.
Top Individual Offensive Grades
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