Wisconsin Football: Big Takeaways from Win over Iowa

The Wisconsin Football team bounced-back with a win over Iowa and here the big takeaways from Saturday’s performance at Camp Randall.

After two straight losses to Illinois and Ohio State, the Wisconsin Football team’s College Football Playoff hopes had been dashed, but a Big Ten West title and a trip to the Big Ten Championship game were still within reach. However, in order to keep those dreams alive, it all started with getting a win over Iowa, in what was essentially a Big Ten West elimination game.

For the most part it was a typical hard-fought Badger-Hawkeye football game, but the Wisconsin defense was able to come up with some key plays, while running back Jonathan Taylor led the offense to victory.

Now at 7-2, the Wisconsin Football team will head to Nebraska next weekend to face the struggling Cornhuskers. But before we start looking ahead, let’s take a look back at Saturday’s performance against Iowa and what some of the big takeaways were.

Badgers dominated third-downs

Whether we are talking about the offensive side of the ball or the defensive, coming into yesterday’s game the Wisconsin football team was one of the best in the country on third-downs.

On offense they were able to keep third downs manageable with Jonathan Taylor and as a result, the Badgers were an impressive 8-14 on third downs. Which was a nice rebound after going just 4-13 two weeks ago against Ohio State. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin defense would hold Iowa to just 1-9 on their third down attempts.

What a day for Quintez Cephus

After the game, Quintez Cephus mentioned that the Badgers expected to take advantage of Iowa on some plays downfield, and he sure was right. Saturday’s game will go down as Cephus’ second best game of the season, and his best since Big Ten play started. In total he’d haul in five receptions for 94 yards with a touchdown, and he was the key contributor to Wisconsin’s third quarter touchdown with a 52-yard reception followed shortly by a 27-yard touchdown catch.

Badgers overcame mistakes

This certainly wasn’t the cleanest game that we have seen from the Badgers as they had to overcome a number of sloppy mistakes. In total, Wisconsin was called for eight penalties while Iowa had only three, the Badgers lost the turnover battle for the third straight game, and kicker Collin Larsh missed a field goal, which puts him at 7/12 on the season. Fortunately, Wisconsin still came away with the win.

The Big Play strikes again

This has been an issue for the Badger defense as of late. Against Illinois they’d give up two touchdowns of 40 yards or more, and another of 29. Then against Ohio State, Wisconsin would give up two runs of at least 20 yards, with a third run over 30, along with two passing plays over 20 yards.

And yesterday, the Badgers would give up a 21 yard run to Tyler Goodson and of course, there was the 75 yard touchdown to Tyrone Tracy Jr. in the final minutes of the fourth quarter that could have cost Wisconsin the game. Moving forward, this is something that needs to be figured out.

How about that 2 point conversion stop?

What a fantastic play this was by linebacker Chris Orr. After giving up the aforementioned 75 yard touchdown, Iowa went for two in an attempt to tie the game but on the quarterback keeper, Orr met Nat Stanley near the goal line and kept him out of the end zone. Wisconsin then ran out the clock and secured the win.

Jonathan Taylor was Jonathan Taylor

After averaging just 3.5 yards per carry over Wisconsin’s last three games, Jonathan Taylor had a tall task on Saturday going up against this Iowa front-seven who was ranked eighth nationally in rushing defense prior to the game. However, Taylor did what all great players do as he put the team on his back.

Taylor would total 250 yards on the ground – the most he’s rushed for in a single game this season – on a whopping 8.1 yards per carry and he put the game away on the final drive.

The Badger OL was fantastic

As I just mentioned, the Wisconsin offensive line had a difficult job as they had to give Taylor room to run against this stout Iowa defense, but they performed wonderfully. In addition to Taylor’s 250 rushing yards, they allowed only two tackles for loss and kept quarterback Jack Coan clean as well. The Hawkeye pass-rush would record just one sack and not a single quarterback hurry the entire game.