IOWA CITY — It was just one of those days for the Wisconsin football team.
The Badgers headed into their showdown with Iowa hoping to inch closer to .500 in the Big Ten. Before they left town, their top two quarterbacks went down with injuries, their vaunted run game was completely shut down, and they were thoroughly beaten by a Hawkeye squad that proved it deserved its high ranking in the BCS standings.
The Badgers (6-4, 1-4 Big Ten) managed only 215 yards of total offense, including only 78 rushing yards on 33 attempts, and couldn’t find the end zone all afternoon as Iowa toppled UW 20-3.
“We were beaten by a very good football team. Iowa really doesn’t have any weaknesses,” head coach Barry Alvarez said. “I thought defensively they were extremely strong; we never could get anything established. We came in thinking we could establish a running game, but we never did, and offensively they had a lot of weapons. I thought our guys battled and competed, but we came up short.”
Starting quarterback Brooks Bollinger was knocked out of the game for the second time in three weeks when he was leveled on a QB keeper at the end of the first half. Bollinger, who suffered a concussion in the Badgers’ loss to Ohio State, was replaced by Jim Sorgi, who subsequently re-injured his ailing right (throwing) hand, putting third-stringer Owen Daniels under center for the first time all season. Sorgi did return to the game, but Daniels played a good deal of the second half and all of the fourth quarter.
“They told me initially that Brooks would be able to play in the second half, but he was not thinking clearly, and they didn’t want to take a chance putting him in there,” Alvarez said. “That’s the same arm Jim hurt last week. He banged it one other time. He didn’t get hurt in the end, I just took him out, I didn’t want to take any chances. I thought Owen did some nice things when he came in for the first time.”
The No. 10 Hawkeyes (9-1, 6-0 Big Ten) broke a 3-3 tie with 1:03 remaining in the first half, as Brad Banks found Mo Brown wide open on a blown UW coverage. Scott Starks and Chuckie Cowans were both in the area, but neither followed Brown as he waltzed into the end zone and grabbed the Banks pass. The catch added to a big day for Brown, who caught six passes for 107 yards.
The Badgers weren’t able to overcome the score just before the half, as Iowa’s dominant run defense, the second-ranked unit in the nation, stuffed UW rushes time and again.
UW had numerous big gains through the air, with Jonathan Orr and Brandon Williams making a few nice grabs on Sorgi passes, but the offense wasn’t able to string together any sort of extended drive, making it into Iowa territory only twice in the second half. Both of those drives ended with interceptions.
After a Nate Kaeding field goal pushed Iowa’s lead to 13-3 in the third quarter, another blown coverage put UW away for good. Iowa QB Brad Banks faked a screen pass to the left side, and the entire UW defense bit, leaving both Brown and tight end Dallas Clark completely uncovered in the end zone. Banks picked Clark, and the Hawkeyes went up 20-3 after Kaeding’s point after.
“We had too many guys trying to make a play that wasn’t theirs, and we lost a couple of guys on that one,” safety Jim Leonhard said.
UW found it difficult to contain the dangerous Banks all day. The senior completed 17 of 30 passes for 275 yards and was a constant threat on the ground. Iowa ran numerous sprint-out plays where Banks had the option of throwing or running, and he victimized the UW defense both ways. Banks gained 61 yards rushing, but three sacks reduced his total to 36 yards.
UW tailback Anthony Davis had trouble finding space to run against an impressive Iowa front seven, rushing for only 37 yards on 16 carries, a paltry 2.1 yards-per-carry average. The 37 yards did push Davis to 1,004 on the year, the 10th-straight season UW has had a 1,000-yard rusher, but the sophomore was too disappointed by the loss to reflect for long on his accomplishment.
Daniels initially looked nervous in his first time at QB all season, but the redshirt freshman showed promise, especially on the ground. Daniels completed only one of four passes, for seven yards, but used his nimble feet to rush for 18 yards on four carries, including a long run of 13 yards.
One bright spot in the game was the play of linebacker Alex Lewis, who started the game at the ‘Mike,’ or middle, spot after playing much of the season on the outside. In his first game playing a significant amount of snaps at the ‘Mike’ spot, the athletic Lewis used his impressive speed to disrupt the Iowa offense, totaling 12 tackles, including 10 solos and four for a loss, and two sacks.
“I was excited, but I was a little nervous,” Lewis said. “Coach Cosgrove has been teaching me a lot, and also Jeff Mack has been coaching me. I still have a lot of work to do.”
With the loss, UW needs to win at least one of its last three games to be bowl-eligible. Although the Badgers’ chances of winning the conference died weeks ago, the possibility of a bowl berth remains as incentive for UW.
“We really have to take a long look at this,” center Al Johnson said. “We have three games left, and if we can run the table we can still go to a bowl game. We can’t get too down on ourselves, but we do need to fix the things that went wrong today.”
