Wisconsin Badgers @ Ohio State Buckeyes Post Game

The Wisconsin Badgers dropped their first game of the season to number 9 rated Ohio State on Saturday. Pushing Bret Bielema’s record against the Buckeyes to 0-4. Ohio State’s offense looked far from stellar as they were held to 20 yards of offense in the first quarter and relied heavily on their defense and kicking game to get them through most of this game. Quarterback Terrelle Pryor, for the game, went a sluggish 5-13 for 87 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Ohio States rushing attack ran for a minuscule 97 yards on 27 carries. And yet, Ohio State was able to put up 31 points on Wisconsin, mainly on crucial errors that the Badgers offense and special teams were making.

Wisconsin Quarterback Scott Tolzien ended his day with 250 yards passing and no touchdowns to go along with 2 interceptions. Both of Tolzien’s two interceptions were then returned for touchdowns giving the defense the credit of 14 of the 31 points Ohio State mustered during the game. Kick returner Ray Small returned a kick 96 yards to give Ohio State special teams 7 points of the 31. The only big offensive play that Ohio State was able to produce was a 32 yard touchdown strike from Terrelle Pryor to wide receiver Jermale Hines in the third quarter that really ended up putting the game away for the Buckeyes.

Similar to the Buckeyes, Wisconsin’s sole touchdown of the game was a fake field goal attempt and run by starting free safety and captain Chris Maragos that gave the Badgers the life that many thought they had needed to defeat OSU. Kicker Philip Welch had an acceptable day converting on 2 of 4 field goal attempts including one from 50 yards away. One of his misses, was a 56 yard field goal that just traveled outside of the right goal post before halftime.

The keys to this game, for the Badgers, were going to be protecting quarterback Scott Tolzien and to establish a running game early and often. Both of which did not happen. Ohio State’s defensive line wreaked havoc on Tolzien all day long giving him little time to throw and making him force passes that eventually turned into game changing interceptions. As for the running game, Wisconsin on fourty four carries, mustered only 118 yards with the most successful rusher as of yards per carry was wide out David Gilreath who executed the wide receiver reverse multiple times to perfection and kept the Ohio State Buckeyes on their heels wondering when Wisconsin would run it again.

The one upside to the Badgers first loss of the season is that their defense really came to play and play hard. Giving up a total of 184 yards of total offense, the defense did everything that they could to keep their team in the game. Ohio State coach Jim Tressel will probably view that as a loss for the Buckeyes though they won the game. Ohio State really did not appear to be a big juggernaut of a team and appeared very defeatable and quite overrated for their standings as ninth in the nation. Without their stellar defensive line, this game would have changed quite dramatically and there is no doubt in anybody’s mind that any other defensive line and this game would have resulted in an OSU loss. The big, burly offensive line the Badgers have, which is mainly built for running ball, could not keep up with the quicker and more agile Ohio State defensive line which eventually made Tolzien have his worst day of the year by far this season. The road doesn’t get any easier for Wisconsin as they travel back to the friendly confines of Camp Randall Stadium to take on number eleven Iowa, who is the only remaining undefeated team in the Big Ten. This game should be as much of a test as the Ohio State game was and there will need to be a lot of work done in practice for the Badgers to be able to pull off this upset.

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