There were a lot of questions heading into the second game of the season for the Wisconsin football team, but Tanner McEvoy answered them and cemented his starting role in the process.
After a slow start offensively, McEvoy came into his own midway through the second quarter and provided the necessary spark the Badgers’ offense needed, leading them on three straight scoring drives on the way to a 37-3 victory over Western Illinois at Camp Randall.
“It was great for us to deal with the adversity we had to deal with in the first quarter and really the whole first half,” head coach Gary Andersen said after the game. “Two weeks in a row now we’ve had some substantial adversity hit us right in the face. A lot of teams this time of year have faced zero adversity and we’ve faced it twice. We’ve looked it right in the eye.
“There was no one placing blame. We kept on fighting. At halftime we all just challenged ourselves to execute and be tough. They did it.”
UW (1-1 overall) scored its fastest points of the season to gain the early advantage with just a second having ticked off the clock to open the game, but the offense didn’t even score those points. The Leathernecks’ Kyle Hammonds muffed the opening kickoff in front of his own goal line and had possession of the ball before taking a knee in the end zone. The officials originally ruled the play a touchback but overturned the call in favor of a safety after a video review to give Wisconsin a 2-0 lead.
Following the strange start, it took the Badgers the better part of two quarters to put more points on the board. McEvoy labored through the first quarter and completed just one of three passes for only eight yards. With Wisconsin struggling in the passing department, Western Illinois clogged the box with up to 10 players at times, daring Wisconsin to go to the air.
However, with McEvoy’s early struggles, UW chose to stay with the running game but to no avail, resulting in three punts, an interception and a turnover on downs in the first four possessions.
Not all of the blame in the early going fell on the backfield, as right tackle Rob Havenstein commented after the game.
“No matter how many guys they put in the box – 10, 11, 13, 27 – it doesn’t matter. We still got to get that run game going. That’s squarely on the shoulders of us, the offensive line. We got to get that going. Melvin [Gordon], Corey [Clement] and all those guys can only do so much. We got to help them out anyway we can,” Havenstein said.
But as the game progressed in the second quarter, the passing game finally began to get some traction. With Wisconsin pinned deep in it’s own territory, McEvoy orchestrated the first substantial drive of the game starting with 13:31 to go in the second quarter and the ball on the 3-yard line. Although the drive didn’t yield any points after the Badgers turned the ball over on downs, McEvoy got into a groove that he stayed in for the rest of the game. The possession lasted 17 plays and ate up 8:22, during which McEvoy completed eight throws for 80 of the drive’s 90 total yards. Three of those throws were third down conversions which came on completions of 13, 22 and 14 yards.
“There was nothing said. There was no magic fairy dust sprinkled on him,” Andersen said of the change in McEvoy’s play, beginning in that drive. “He started to execute. He started to run the offense well and he started to play the way we thought he could when we recruited him.”
After wide receiver Reggie Love dropped a ball halfway through that fourth drive, McEvoy went on to complete his final six passes, and continued his string of completions on the next possession. Following a three-and-out by Western Illinois, McEvoy charged the Badgers down the field in just three plays to get what proved to be the game-winning score. He started the drive with his longest pass of the afternoon, a 37-yard connection with tight end Sam Arneson to put Wisconsin at the Leathernecks’ 17-yard line. McEvoy then made back-to-back plays with his legs with a scramble for 10 yards and an option-read for seven to get into the endzone.
As McEvoy explained, he wasn’t the only one in charge in the change of fortune for the offense.
“They were putting us in a position to have to pass the ball,” McEvoy said. “We started to get into a little bit of a rhythm. We had some great catches from some receivers and the pass protection was there. We executed, we answered and that’s what you have to do.”
Western Illinois got a field goal at the end of the first half to cut the lead to 9-3, but McEvoy and the offense picked up right where they had left off and scored two more times to go up 23-3 to start the third quarter. The first scoring drive lasted 10 plays as McEvoy led UW 75 yards for a touchdown, while the second was a quick strike, three-play 57-yard drive.
McEvoy finished with 283 yards passing along with a team-high 55 yards on the ground.
That proved to be more than enough, as the defense held the Leathernecks’ to just 54 yards rushing. The only serious threat posed by Western Illinois was in the second quarter when UW led 2-0, but safety Michael Caputo picked off Trenton Norvell in the redzone to preserve Wisconsin’s lead.
“We got a lot of young guys out there and it was a learning curve for us,” Havenstein said. “Winning just doesn’t happen. It’s going to be a fight every single game. You can’t just show up and someone’s going to give you the W.”
