The No. 7 ranked Badgers were nearly as red hot as their jerseys this past Saturday as their offense proved to be too much for Washington State’s defense to handle in front of a sold-out and fired up crowd at Camp Randall Stadium.
As a program that is known nationally as a dominant rushing team, fifth year senior Tyler Donovan showed that this year’s offense has potential on multiple fronts in the passing game as he lowered the volume of his critics after completing 19-29 passes for 284 yards and four total touchdowns, three through the air.
Donovan explains the reasoning for the offensive success through the air by saying, “They were trying to stop the run early, and we wanted to take advantage of going over the top. I give the offensive line a lot of credit, they did a great job and the receivers for getting open.”
After falling behind to WSU early in the game 7-0 and then again 14-7, it was the perfect scenario for a somewhat game inexperienced player such as Donovan to get rattled, but he did not show any ill effects from a somewhat slow start by the Badger defense.
“I don’t think he lets things fluster him. We saw this last year too as far as the Iowa game when he stepped in and went in there like he’d been the starter for a few years, that is the great edge for Tyler Donovan,” sophomore Jake Bscherer said.
The Washington State secondary was clearly the weak point of their defense as their youth and inexperience were put on display by the constant aerial assault that was deployed. One standout for Bucky was walk-on turned scholarship wide receiver Luke Swan, who had a career day catching eight balls for a career high 170 yards while shredding the Cougar defense for two touchdowns including a key 38 yard snare as the first half was winding down, increasing the Badger lead to 28-14.
“I call him ‘for-sure hands’, he rarely drops the ball, he runs good routes, he gets open and he’ll make big plays. I just love when we throw him the ball because he makes big plays,” sophomore running back P.J. Hill said.
While the UW passing attack was picking apart the Cougars, tallying long plays and big numbers for the receivers, the rushing game is what controlled the tempo of the game, especially in the second half.
The combo of sophomores Hill and Lance Smith helped UW maintain possession of the ball for over 21 minutes in the second half and in doing so really limited any opportunity the Cougar offense had to mount a comeback. As usual, Hill was the workhorse as he lumbered for 84 yards on 21 carries, but Smith flashed some quick footwork and nifty moves while gaining 60 yards on 11 carries.
Perhaps the most important stat that can be attributed to the UW running backs is the fact that the Badgers were able to convert on 11 of 15 third downs.
“That’s huge. As an offense we had to keep the chains moving,” Donovan said.
