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Why Wisconsin will be better in the long run for what it went through against Northwestern
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No, they didn’t.
Oh, sorry. I thought you asked me whether Wisconsin looked like a top-10 team on Saturday.
No, the Badgers definitely didn’t.
They turned the ball over too much, they took their foot off the gas and they struggled for the majority of a game against a lesser team. That’s not a winning formula for a team trying to make a College Football Playoff push. Copy that formula vs. Michigan or even at Nebraska and Wisconsin will do exactly what pessimistic Badger fans fear.
That is, lose to a team that it shouldn’t lose to. You know, like it did against Northwestern in 2014, and again in 2015.
The Badgers turned it on early in the second half, and fortunately for them, they came up with a big play on the Wildcats’ last-ditch effort to tie the game. It ended up being an ugly win.
Wisconsin might not have solidified that top-10 ranking on Saturday, but it did something that will have more long-term value that that.
They finally got tested.
Paul Chryst admitted to the ESPN broadcast crew on Friday that Northwestern was the first time his team was actually going to be tested. Sorry Utah State. Sorry Florida Atlantic. Sorry BYU. All of those pregame compliments Chryst gave your team were a complete lie!
OK, let’s get back to the matter at hand.
Northwestern was a test. That test was even tougher without preseason All-American tight end Troy Fumagalli, who was a late scratch with a hamstring injury. We saw Alex Hornibrook struggle in the first half without his favorite target. He learned that jump balls to Kyle Penniston are a little different than jump balls to Fumagalli.
Hornibrook had to find other targets. So what did he do? He targeted Quintez Cephus deep, he found Danny Davis for a key score and he didn’t make those 50-50 throws in the second half. And on a day in which Jonathan Taylor didn’t go off, that was absolutely necessary.
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As a result, the Wisconsin offense overcame a little in-game adversity and bounced back after seven first-half points. Wisconsin lit up Northwestern for 24 second-half points, seven of which came on a Natrell Jamerson interception that was returned for a touchdown.
With 10 minutes left, that was supposed to be the dagger for a Wisconsin defense that harassed Clayton Thorson in the third quarter. The Badgers looked up at the scoreboard and saw they had a 21-point lead in the fourth quarter. They saw the Camp Randall Stadium student section head out, too.
After all, a 21-point lead for the Wisconsin defense with 10 minutes left seemed like as safe a bet as any on Saturday. Shoot, the Badgers hadn’t allowed a second-half point all season!
Instead, the Wisconsin defense looked like it followed the student section right out of the stadium.
Jim Leonhard had to be irate with how his defense played down the stretch. The Badgers led by 21 points with five minutes to play, yet Northwestern was one two-minute drill away from forcing overtime. A better team might’ve been able to do just that.
The schedule is favorable, but Wisconsin will face better teams than Northwestern in 2017. Learning Saturday’s lessons against a better team would’ve likely resulted in a loss.
As any coach will say, you learn more about your team when it struggles than when it succeeds. Had the Badgers dominated in the second half once again, it would’ve provided more proof that they could flip a switch. That’s a dangerous mindset to have late in the season.
The Badgers finally had to play against a capable team. They finally had to play without a key offensive weapon. They finally had to fend off a late rally.
There wasn’t anything pretty about Wisconsin did on Saturday. There’s a decent chance that the Badgers fall out of the top 10 in the Associated Press poll.
But when they’re not firing on all cylinders and trying to keep their Playoff hopes alive on a Saturday in November, they’ll be grateful for they went through on the final day of September.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Tradition. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.