After a big win over Nebraska the week before, the Badgers were in a position to win the Western Division. All Wisconsin needed to do was win out or win against Iowa and have Nebraska beat Minnesota. But with Minnesota winning in Lincoln, Wisconsin needed to win its remaining two games to punch its ticket to Indianapolis. However, Iowa also had a chance to win the division. With two games remaining, Wisconsin was on top at 5-1 in the Big Ten and Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota all were 4-2. Every team in that mix of four had to play two of the other teams for its final two games.
The game started about as well as possible for Bucky, as Mark Weisman fumbled on the second play from scrimmage and Michael Caputo, who forced the fumble, also recovered the ball for the Badgers. Wisconsin picked up one first down, but had to settle for a Rafael Gaglianone 50-yard field goal and the Badgers led 3-0.
Iowa came right down the field on a 14-play drive and Marshall Koehn connected on a 26-yard field goal to tie things up.
A pair of punts followed before the Badgers retook the lead. Tanner McEvoy came into the game to run the ‘Wildcat’ and faked a handoff before blasting through a hole and racing 45 yards for the score. The extra point was missed and the Badgers led 9-3. Melvin Gordon, who was bottled up in the first half, added another score just before halftime to put the Badgers ahead 16-3 going into the break.
I mentioned Gordon was bottled up in the first half. Well, with Wisconsin backed up to its own 8, Gordon erased that with one play, as he raced down the sideline for 88 yards, but was tracked down at the Iowa 4. Wisconsin was held out of the end zone and Gaglianone put the Badgers in front 19-3.
Iowa gained momentum from that stop. After the stop, Iowa quarterback Jake Rudock became red hot. Iowa blew down the field and scored on a Rudock 20-yard pass to Kevonte Martin-Manley. The two-point conversion was good as well and the Hawkeyes cut the deficit to 19-11.
Wisconsin punted on its next possession and Rudock went back to work, completing his opening two passes of the drive for a total of 61 yards. A pass interference call on Wisconsin’s Darius Hillary moved the ball to the Wisconsin 2 and Rudock ran it in for the score. This two-point conversion failed and the Badgers held onto a 19-17 advantage.
Wisconsin was facing a third down and long on the following drive. With Rudock being on fire, the Badgers needed a conversion. Bucky did just that and then some. Stave was being blitzed and found a wide open Gordon, whose catch and ran of 35 yards set the ball at the Iowa 33. Two plays later, Gordon found space along the left sideline and glided into the end zone from 23 yards away to put the Badgers in front 26-17.
But Rudock was not done. He was 3-4 on the drive for 59 yards and a touchdown, a 9-yard pass to Jake Duzey to cut the deficit back down to two. He also had two runs for 32 yards on the drive, including a 21-yard run on 3rd-and-15 to pick up a big first down.
With the season hanging in the balance, Wisconsin had the ball at its own 25 with five minutes remaining. Two Gordon runs on the first two plays picked up 11 yards and a first down. The next two runs just gained a total of two yards. With the Badgers facing a 3rd-and-8 with less than two minutes remaining, the most unlikely Badger made the biggest of plays. Joel Stave, who just threw for 139 yards on the day, went back to pass. He was flushed to the left and found some daylight. Stave ran and spun to try to elude an Iowa defender at the first down marker to gain a few extra yards. The 12-yard run by Stave sealed the game as Iowa only had one timeout remaining.
The win would set up the matchup with Minnesota to determine which team would go to the Big Ten Championship game in Indianapolis.
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