The Badgers finally give up a touchdown after 215 minutes and 3 seconds without allowing one after Joel Stave threw a bad interception right into the hands of Iowa’s best cornerback Desmond King. Then, Iowa’s talented pass rusher Drew Ott forced a sack-fumble on the Badgers’ first play on the next possession, leading to a field goal. The Badgers go into halftime trailing 10-3.
Turning point: Edwards interception negated by questionable penalty. The true turning point came on an Iowa possession that did not hurt the Badgers (Iowa’s Koehn missed a 27-yard field goal), but could have led to the Badgers building their lead. On third down, Iowa’s quarterback C.J. Beathard was looking short to pick up a first down and Badgers inside linebacker T.J. Edwards made an excellent read on the throw, intercepting it. Unfortunately, a personal foul, hands to the face penalty was called on back-up outside linebacker Jesse Hayes that gave the Hawkeyes an automatic first down. Again, Iowa did not score, but it stopped some momentum that Wisconsin could have carried to build on their 3-0 lead at the time.
Field position favoring Iowa due to winning the turnover battle. Mainly due to the two turnovers forced by King and Ott, the Hawkeyes have had much better field position than the Badgers.
WISCONSIN – OWN 16, OWN 11, OWN 8, OWN 20, OWN 20, OWN 23
IOWA – OWN 32, OWN 49, OWN 24, WISC 31, WISC 15, OWN 44
Badgers containing Beathard, to an extent. The biggest key to the game for the Badgers was containing Iowa’s quarterback C.J. Beathard, which they have done to an extent. He’s run for two first downs, but only has 15 yards on four carries. He’s only thrown for 53 yards and a touchdown and is 5/12 passing. Iowa’s starting running back Jordan Canzeri has benefited though from those two third down runs, averaging 5.3 yards per carry with 79 yards on 15 carries.
Badgers’ offense doing next to nothing. Joel Stave threw that interception and is 8/14 for 99 yards. Taiwan Deal and Dare Ogunbowale have combined for 13 carries for 50 yards. No receiver is over 30 yards besides Ogunbowale (mainly due to a 27-yard catch and run), and the offensive line has struggled to protect Stave.
Gaglianone’s inconsistency. Kicker Rafael Gaglianone, notably a solid kicker last season, made his first field goal attempt and missed the second. He is 5/9 on the season.
True freshman Sagapolu starts at nose guard. There was talk before the game that true freshman Olive Sagapolu would get some playing time today, and the rumors were true.
Matchup to watch: Hillary vs. VandeBerg. Beathard’s favorite target, Matt VandeBerg, made easy work in the slot of Darius Hillary in the first quarter. He has four of Iowa’s five receptions, adding to his season total which leads the Hawkeyes with 29 receptions.
Badgers red zone defense. Iowa has been in the Badgers’ red zone three times, missing a field goal, scoring a touchdown, and kicking a field goal. This season, the Badgers’ defense has only given up five scores out of opponents’ eight attempts.