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No. 18 Wisconsin 31, No. 1 Ohio State 18
Pete Fiutak
Before the 2009 game against Wisconsin, the Ohio State defensive line had been called out. It had been struggling a bit, it wasn’t doing enough to get into the backfield and it was underwhelming. It stepped up its game against the Badgers, dominated the line throughout and forced several mistakes — including two pick sixes that ended up making a tight game a blowout.
Wisconsin’s offensive line got embarrassed.
One of the nation’s most experienced and talented offensive fronts had Saturday's game circled for more reasons than just because it was against Ohio State. This was the game the line, to a man, talked about as the one it needed to dominate to establish itself as something special. All the accolades and praise meant nothing unless the front five could own the Buckeyes, and it did.
Ohio State hadn’t allowed a 100-yard rusher since Joe McKnight tore off 105 yards in a 35-3 USC win on September 13, 2008, but on Saturday night, John Clay ran for 104 yards against the nation’s No. 4 run defense. QB Scott Tolzien got all the time he needed to throw, including the one big pass that sparked the final drive that put the nail in the coffin, the Badgers ran for 184 yards, and the offensive line got its day of revenge — plus the satisfaction of helping to send the national title chase into a spiral.
Ohio State got an extremely physical running day from Dan Herron, who rumbled for 91 yards and two touchdowns. But it got shoved around way too often on both sides of the ball and Wisconsin played the brand of football that has defined the program for almost two decades.
But there’s another challenge ahead. Iowa’s defensive line destroyed the Badgers last year in a 20-10 win, holding the running game to just 87 yards. Beating Ohio State was big for the Wisconsin offensive line, but manhandling the Iowa front four next week in Iowa City, in many ways, would be even bigger. Do that, repeat the performance from the Ohio State game, and a BCS game will be in sight.
Richard Cirminiello
Thank you, South Carolina. Thank you, Texas. And thank you, Wisconsin.
In the span of eight days, conventional wisdom has circled the drain in college football, with losses from Alabama, Nebraska and Ohio State almost guaranteeing that mayhem will ensue in early December. Three of the national heavyweights are no longer perfect, meaning a bunch of schools have moved a giant step closer to Glendale and the national championship game on Jan. 10.
Yeah, yeah, Boise State, Oregon and TCU are three of them. But all of a sudden, Michigan State, LSU, Auburn and Oklahoma, among others, also suddenly control their own destiny. It’s going to be up to the coaches of those schools to maintain the kids’ focus because the scrutiny will be ratcheted up a few notches as long as they remain unbeaten.
Now that the nation’s top-ranked team has lost in consecutive weeks, mayhem is squarely upon us as the initial BCS rankings are set to be announced. And it’s only the middle of October. Just wait until next month when every game involving top 5 schools has a playoff feel to it.
Do yourself a favor. Go grab a history book and start brushing up on the 1984 season. None of the majors seemed to want the national championship, which was eventually won by LaVell Edwards’ BYU team in the Holiday Bowl. At the mid-point of 2010, it’s beginning to feel an awful lot like that strange season more than a quarter century ago.
Matt Zemek
This is how college football works: Teams that struggle and stumble as they try to find their footing suddenly encounter a game that captures their collective imagination and earns their complete attention. An up-and-down outfit that found precision to be elusive for the first half of a season finally meets a moment it can embrace with unreserved intensity and hunger.
It’s not that this struggling team wasn’t trying to succeed for several weeks; the presence of a national spotlight simply generates an extra measure of urgency, transforming a week of practice into a substantially different experience. This translates into a different product on gameday and a conquest of the (no-longer) No. 1 team in the nation.
The above dynamic characterizes the journey taken by the Wisconsin Badgers in 2010. A team that got out-hit and largely outplayed by Arizona State, and then saw its defense get shredded by Michigan State, became a very different team vs. Ohio State, the defending Big Ten champs. While it’s true that OSU quarterback Terrelle Pryor looked little different from the wobbly signal caller who lobbed weak throws into secondaries last season, this game was still claimed with forcefulness and conviction by the Badgers. Ohio State got exposed on many levels, but the main storyline of this 13-point thumping is that Wisconsin was more than good enough to undress the Buckeyes, especially on the few occasions when this tussle got tense.
All of America — especially football fans craving BCS chaos — was anxiously waiting to see what kind of stuff Wisconsin was made of after Ohio State shaved a 21-0 lead to 21-18 early in the fourth quarter. The Badgers’ response was as impressive as it was decisive: 10 plays, 73 yards, and 4:41 later, Wisconsin owned a game-sealing, death-dealing touchdown delivered by running back James White. As was the case in the game’s first 17 minutes (when the home team built a 21-0 lead), the Badgers’ offensive front played the way everyone in Madison hoped it would play this season. Wisconsin’s big uglies did not distinguish themselves in the first six weeks of the season, but this game brought out the hard-hat excellence that coach Bret Bielema so clearly needed.
The performance of the Badgers was noteworthy; Wisconsin’s complete ownership of every meaningful moment in this game is the statement that will reverberate throughout the rest of the 2010 season … not just for the Badgers themselves, but for the beaten Buckeyes, who must do a lot of soul-searching after getting controlled so comprehensively at crunch time.
