Jonathan. Taylor. Like always, I start out with the positives, and Taylor had one of the best games in Wisconsin history. He ran for a career-high 321 yards and three touchdowns, and the Badgers needed every last one of them. The 321 yards was the third most in school history, only trailing Ron Dayne’s 339 against Hawaii in 1996 and Melvin Gordon’s 408 against Nebraska in 2014. It is the most rushing yards in the FBS this season, and the third game of at least 300 rushing yards. In the first half, the sophomore ran for “just” 74 yards on 12 carries. After that, he carried the rock 21 times for 247 yards, an incredible 11.8-yard average. The big day moved him ahead of Billy Marek into seventh place in Wisconsin history with 3,846 yards. So, yes, he is just 154 yards shy of 4,000 in his career, which is just two years old. Barring injury, he will move into fifth place all-time in school history by the time the year is up, as he is just 169 yards behind James White. Taylor is now just 31 yards from 2,000 on the season. That is already sixth in school history for a single season. Gordon’s historic 2014 season is out of the question, but he is just 240 behind Ron Dayne’s 2,109 in 1996 for second place. I am running out of adjectives to describe the sophomore running back. He is just incredible. No. 23 started the second half with an 80-yard touchdown run to tie it up at 10-10. His 35-yard run also helped cap the fourth quarter comeback and tie it up at 27. What makes his day even that much more impressive was the fact that he was not stopped for a loss once. This was a performance for the ages.
A healthy Andrew Van Ginkel is a huge plus for the Badgers. He had 10 tackles on the game, with every single one being a solo stop. Not only did he have two sacks, he also made a huge play in the first half when he knocked the ball out of the hands of Purdue’s Isaac Zico and into the end zone for a touchback. T.J. Edwards also had 10 tackles, with nine of his being of the solo variety. Like Van Ginkel, Edwards also had two tackles for loss.
The run defense has improved drastically the past several weeks. D.J. Knox came in averaging 6.1 yards per carry and had nearly 800 yards on the ground this season, while Markell Jones averaged nearly five yards per tote. Knox ran for 128 in the upset of Ohio State last month. Against the Badgers, the duo combined for 21 carries for just 68 yards. As a team, Purdue ran the ball 31 times for 76 yards. Despite being 89th going into the game in rushing, the Boilermakers averaged 4.8 yards per carry. They don’t run it often, but are effective when doing it. Wisconsin had climbed to 64th in rushing yards allowed per game and 86th in yards per carry. That may not seem like much, but it is a vast improvement from a month ago. They made a few key run stops in the game to keep Wisconsin within striking distance. The first was a stop on third down to hold Purdue to a field goal late in the first half to keep it a one-score game. Wisconsin also made back-to-back stops on the 1 midway through the fourth when the score was 24-13. A touchdown would have likely sealed the game, but the defense came through with a pair of stops to keep it a two score game at 27-13.
The passing game was dormant for much of the day, but came through with some clutch plays to get the game to overtime. Jack Coan’s stat line is decent, but that is a significant improvement over his previous two starts. In the game, the sophomore signal caller was 16-of-24 for 160 yards and a pair of scores, and most importantly, no turnovers. In the final nine minutes of regulation and the overtimes, Coan was 7-for-7 for 70 yards and two touchdowns. He only threw one pass in the three overtimes combined, but it was enough to get the job done. Also, what great effort by Danny Davis on his two touchdown grabs. He only had four catches for 36 yards, but his two touchdown catches were tremendous, especially his one-handed grab to cut it 27-20. After a fast start to the season, A.J. Taylor had just six catches for 52 yards combined in his last five games, but came through today with five for 89 and four of his five grabs went for first downs. Coan’s really only blunder that stands out was his sack he took at the end of the first half. Instead of a 3rd-and-goal at the Purdue 2, it was third down at the 11 and Wisconsin had to settle for a field goal. It wasn’t a great performance by Coan, but it was an improvement and hopefully they won’t need him any more this season.
Finally, what resiliency by the Badgers. Most thought Wisconsin would not win this game without Hornibrook or David Edwards. And if you thought the Badgers would win the game after falling behind 27-13, you’re a liar. Tom Oates of the Wisconsin State Journal tweeted “Hello, Pin Cushion Bowl” and one of the first responses was “How about the Toilet Bowl.” Both terrible attempts at humor, and somehow the Badgers got up off the mat and scored two late touchdowns to send the game into overtime. I mean, I don’t blame anyone for writing off the team with seven minutes to play. After scoring 10 points on their first two drives of the second half, the next two were both punts and the team gained a grand total of 18 yards on eight plays. This team was left for dead. Evan Flood of 247 Sports tweeted “Things I didn't think I'd be asking this season: Is the Badgers 14-year winning streak over Minnesota coming to an end next week?” What a difference an hour or so makes. The Badgers scored touchdowns on five of their final six drives (not counting the kneel down) and Wisconsin escaped with a monster comeback win it had no business even being in. The Badgers may be down, but they are certainly not out of it. That was a gritty win that will give them confidence moving forward into the final two games of the season.
There are two main negatives in this game. First, I will start out with the most frustrating: penalties. Wisconsin was penalized 13 times for 125 yards. Waaaaaaaaaaaay too many. And five of them were false starts. Too many, and the Badgers need to clean that up as they get ready for the Gophers. The 125 yards is the most Wisconsin has had this century. So, hopefully this was an anomaly, and the Badgers can play relatively penalty-free football the last few games. They came in averaging 5.4 penalties per game for 46.3 yards per game, so I’ll chalk it up to a bad game, but that was an uncharacteristic showing today.
The pass defense was not good Saturday. The secondary looked good for a few games in a row against solid quarterbacks, but ever since the Rutgers game in which Wisconsin’s secondary made Artur Sitkowski look competent, they have not looked sharp. David Blough is a very good quarterback, and was 16th in pass yards per game going into the matchup. He torched Wisconsin’s secondary for 386 yards and four touchdowns on 31-of-48 passing. The tackling was optional as the game went on too. I know Rondale Moore is a beast, but the effort to bring him down was not there for much of the day. The secondary is young, so hopefully their overall game improves. Rachad Wildgoose was on Moore much of the day and was picked on quite a bit. We’ll need better next week against Minnesota.
Overall, it was a great win. Yes, Purdue is only 5-5, but the Boilermakers beat Iowa and crushed Ohio State in their previous two home games. Man, 7-4 looks a lot better than 6-5. The Badgers have a chance to make it 8-4 next week when they return to Camp Randall to take on the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the annual battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe.
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