I am going to start out by giving the game ball to cornerback Nick Nelson. The junior cornerback had four pass breakups on the day, and he has 14 on the year. The 14 ties him with Badgers greats Jamar Fletcher (2000) and current defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard (2002) for fourth most in a season. It is also tied for second nationally. He also had a poor pass interference call on him today. Two of his pass breakups came on third down, including one in the end zone that forced Illinois to settle for a field goal. He shut down D.J. Moore last week and did so again against the Illinois wide receivers. Admittedly, they are not the best group of receivers he will play this season, but he shut them down. The Badgers needed him and Derrick Tindal even more yesterday with the injury to Dixon, and Natrell Jamerson also missed time, although he did return. The only thing he is missing is an interception. I have a feeling that will come soon, though. I think it is about time people recognize him as one of the top cover corners in the nation.
In addition to Nelson, the defense played great once again, not allowing Illinois to score a touchdown until less than a minute was left and the game was out of reach. The Illini were just held to 211 yards of total offense until they went on a meaningless 75-yard touchdown drive at the end of the game. Wisconsin was able to force three Illinois turnovers, and the offense turned those into 14 points. The final takeaway by Leonhard’s crew was the Joe Ferguson pick when it looked like Illinois was going to cut it to 17-10. Instead, Ferguson picked it off and ran it up near midfield and Wisconsin scored several plays later on a Michael Dieter touchdown to give the Badgers a 24-3 lead. Nice 14-point swing there. Once again, whenever the defense was up against the wall, it came through. I mentioned the Ferguson pick to thwart a potential scoring drive for Illinois, but once again Hornibrook threw a pick in opponents territory that was returned into Wisconsin territory. But, the defense rose up and took the ball back on a fumble recovery. Wisconsin did not let Illinois get its passing game going, at all. The Illini quarterbacks were a combined just 9-of-31, a pathetic 29 percent completion percentage. The defense will have much bigger tests the rest of the year, but it is nice to see the unit put the clamps on a lesser opponent.
I want to give a shout out to the guys who performed when called upon. When Dixon was scratched just before gametime, Ferguson was called upon. He delivered a game-sealing interception to keep the score at 17-3 in the final quarter. Another is linebacker Tyler Johnson. The former high school quarterback only had three total tackles coming into the game, but he had two against Illinois, including a monster sack and forced fumble near midfield that Wisconsin recovered. The Badgers would cash in after the turnover with the game’s first points. Nicely done, Tyler. Also, Kendric Pryor had a big-time catch against Purdue that converted a third down, but Pryor led the team in receiving against the Illini filling in for the injured Jazz Peavy and Danny Davis. Pryor had a pair of catches for 37 yards, including one on a 3rd-and-6. The other was the opening play of the field goal drive to end the half. Not a bad job by Pryor. He has a future in this receiving core. And finally, yes....FAT GUY TOUCHDOWN!!!!! In an otherwise boring game, this was the highlight that will be played for years. I mentioned it a bit last paragraph, but Dieter’s touchdown was awesome. It does not happen much at all, seeing an offensive lineman catch a touchdown, but when it does, it is super awesome. Even as a Wisconsin fan, I admit this game made me want to take a nap, but I am glad I stuck it out and saw the whole game. What a great moment!
In my Maryland game review blog post, I challenged Wisconsin to have four or fewer penalties. The Badgers had exactly four. Nice job. The four penalties were for 50 yards, which is not great, though. I will say, though, the pass interference on Nelson was questionable at best. Without that, it is three penalties for 35 yards. Not bad at all. How about some love for Rafael Gaglianone as well? In the wind, Gaglianone knocked through a career-long 52-yard field goal, despite Lovie Smith calling three timeouts consecutively to try to ice the junior. With the make, he is now 8-for-10 on the year after missing the team’s final 11 games in 2016 due to a back injury. I’d say that field goal showed that Gaglianone is as confident as ever.
Now, the weather was a factor, but the offense was brutal, especially after Taylor left with an injury in the second quarter. Wisconsin’s first two possessions of the game were three-and-out, and the third one was too, but Bucky was bailed out by a flag on the punt, so Wisconsin got a free first down and proceeded to march down the field for the first points of the day. In the first half when the Badgers had Taylor for much of the half, Wisconsin rushed for 127 yards on 27 carries. In the second half, it was just 18 rushes for 41 yards. In total, the Badgers had just 303 yards of offense against a team allowing more than 400 yards of offense per game and giving up 30 points per game. Granted, half of the game he was going into a stiff breeze, but Hornibrook barely completed 50 percent of his passes for just 135 yards and the pick. Not good. The running game was okay, and the passing game was virtually non-existent. As the weather gets worse, the offense needs to step up and make some plays and not ask the defense to keep bailing them out.
I mentioned the quarterback a bit above, but man, Hornibrook was not sharp yesterday. Normally, even on rough days, he has his moments on third downs, but he struggled there as well. For the day, he went just 10-of-19 for 135 yards and the interception. That interception was in opponents territory again. Six of the last seven picks thrown by the sophomore quarterback have been thrown in opponents territory, and the only one that wasn’t was the pick six at Nebraska. Maybe some of that is due to the fact that two of his top three receivers are out, but some of his passes were just poor. For instance, on the interception, he had Troy Fumagalli wide open, but he underthrew him and it was an easy pick for Illinois’ Bennett Williams. He will need to have better days, as his competition will only get more difficult the rest of the way.
I don’t know how many were sat down because it was Illinois, but there were a number of key players who did not play. Jazz Peavy has taken a leave of absence from the team, so he is out indefinitely, but Danny Davis, D’Cota Dixon, Isaiahh Loudermilk and Chikwe Obasih all did not play. Obasih was in uniform, but did not play. I am guessing he’ll play in Bloomington next Saturday. Dixon practiced all week, but apparently was not good enough to play against Illinois. Loudermilk was ruled out early last week, so I doubt he plays against Indiana. Davis was questionable this week, so there is a chance he plays as well. However, the big one is the star freshman running back. Taylor left the game late in the second quarter in the win. The fact that he never went to the locker room is encouraging, but we won’t know the severity of the injury until at least Monday. Hopefully him being taken out was just precautionary and he’ll be good to go for the Hoosiers. Regardless, Wisconsin needs all these guys back if it wants to make a run at the conference championship and a berth in the College Football Playoff.
Lastly, Illinois was able to do quite a bit with quarterback Cam Thomas on the ground. The freshman ran 10 times for 78 yards. It is big because Ohio State came from behind to beat Penn State and the Buckeyes pose one of the top dual threat quarterbacks in the nation, J.T. Barrett. Thomas is a terrible passer and he still ran wild on Wisconsin, so that makes me cringe at the thought of Barrett going against this defense, and he actually can throw the forward pass effectively. Whenever he was in the game, I was pleading that they should not even bother defending the pass against him. Thomas completed as many passes to Wisconsin defenders as he did to his own team. Hopefully, that was needed in order to prepare for someone of Barrett’s caliber, as the Badgers had not faced a running quarterback up until Thomas.
It rarely has been pretty this season, but Bucky got it done again. The Badgers played their worst game of the season, but fortunately were playing a team that is winless in the conference. Wisconsin stays on the road next week, as Bucky travels to Indiana to take on the Hoosiers for the 11 am CST kick. The game will be televised on ABC.
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