The lights shined brightly above them, but the circumstances for the Wisconsin football defense looked dim.
Hawaii was knocking on the door at the Badgers’ one-yard line, on the verge of making Saturday night’s contest a one-possession game with nearly an entire half of football remaining.
Then, the defense turned on the lights and blinded the Rainbow Warriors right in their tracks.
Down 14-0, Hawaii ran a trick play, with wide receiver Makoa Camanse-Stevens catching a screen pass and then throwing to running back Paul Harris for 51 yards to bring the Rainbow Warriors inside the red zone for the first time in the game.
Another pass completion got Hawaii to the one-yard line, but a Hawaii late hit and Joe Schobert’s sixth sack of the season backed them up.
Hawaii got cute again with another trick play, this time a pass on an end-around from Stevens, and Tanner McEvoy got called for targeting Hawaii quarterback Max Wittek, who acted as the receiver on the play. It was the third time a UW player suffered that fate in the last two games.
But after a review, justice was served and the call was reversed. One play later, a holding penalty pushed the Rainbow Warriors all the way back to the UW 31-yard line. Kicker Rigoberto Sanchez missed a 49-yard kick wide left and a goose egg remained on the scoreboard.
And it stayed that way for the rest of the game.
Playing a night game at Camp Randall Stadium for the first time in more than three years, No. 22 Wisconsin (3-1) emerged victorious against Hawaii (2-2) 28-0 Saturday night for its third straight win.
The defensive stand in the beginning of the third quarter was a pivotal point of the game, UW head coach Paul Chryst said.
“That’s not easy, appreciate the effort there,” Chryst said. “I thought it was huge, coming out of the second half, they had the big play and guys just kept playing.”
Behind a traditional Badger offensive strategy of run, run, run, UW tallied 326 total yards on the ground and scored three of its four touchdowns via the run.
The win concluded non-conference play for the Badgers, who will begin Big Ten play next week when Iowa comes to town for an 11 a.m. kickoff at Camp Randall Saturday, Oct. 3.
Taiwan Deal got the scoring going on a two-yard touchdown run with 4:27 left in the first quarter. Deal went for 56 of his 147 yards on Wisconsin’s first offensive drive of the game to put UW up 7-0. Wisconsin rushed the ball on 13 out of 16 plays to go 97 yards down the field on that opening drive, controlling the ball for eight minutes and one second.
From there on, the theme of the offense was ground and pound.
A pass interference call in the end zone set up the Deal’s second touchdown run of the game, this one coming from two yards out with 38 seconds remaining in the first half. He was initially stopped at the line, but bounced off his lineman to the outside for the score.
The run capped a nine-play, 73-yard touchdown run and sent the Badgers into the locker room with a two-touchdown lead, much to the courtesy of Deal. By then, the redshirt freshman had secured his first 100-yard game of his career in just his fourth collegiate game.
Fifth-year senior tight end Austin Traylor snagged his third touchdown in as many games with 53 seconds remaining in the third quarter on a 12-yarder pass down the seam to put Wisconsin up 21-0.
Dare Ogunbowale added even more insurance on a nine-yard touchdown run with 7:29 left in the game. Ogunbowale finished with 85 rushing yards on 15 carries and said the plan was to start running the rock the Wisconsin way.
“That’s what we planned to be doing this game,” Ogunbowale said. “Just to get back to usually how we do things and get that going heading into the Big Ten season.”
After the first quarter, the Wisconsin defense had allowed -10 rushing yards. The unit yielded just 240 total yards and gave the Hawaii offense fits all night long.
In the first half, Hawaii ran just one play in Wisconsin territory, and it was a punt. The defense hasn’t allowed a touchdown since 8:02 remained in the fourth quarter of the season opener against Alabama, a span of 188 minutes and two seconds.
“It means something, not too much,” McEvoy said of the streak. “It’s nice to have that statistic, but we still have some good teams coming up.”
McEvoy led the defense with six tackles and redshirt sophomore Jack Cichy added five.
With the win, UW improved to 6-1 all-time against Hawaii. Wisconsin hasn’t lost a non-conference game at home since 2003, a string of 35 consecutive games. It’s the second-longest streak among FBS, second only to LSU.
