The Wisconsin Badger football team's opponent Saturday afternoon at Camp Randall Stadium was, indeed, Northwestern, but through the first half it was merely playing against itself.
After they acknowledged that fact at halftime, the Badgers played a seamless second half en route to a feel-good 41-9 victory over the Wildcats.
Redshirt freshman running back P.J. Hill was the self-described workhorse for UW, running the ball 35 times for 249 yards, both career-highs. It was readily evident that Hill was in for a big day on the ground when, on the second play of the game, he found a hole in the right side of the line and rumbled 60 yards for a touchdown. It was the longest offensive play for the Badgers this season.
""PJ, because of his size, everybody just thinks of him as a bruiser,"" head coach Bret Bielema said following the game. ""He really is gifted athletically, does a good job of reading things ... I think he makes good decisions in the open field.""
UW made it 10-0 mid-first quarter on a 40-yard field goal by junior Taylor Mehlhaff. The drive got the Badgers all the way to the Northwestern 13-yard line before a holding penalty killed their momentum.
The Wildcats got into the endzone on their next possession, highlighted by freshman quarterback Andrew Brewer's 29-yard pass to junior wide receiver Kim Thompson. That throw got the Wildcats all the way to the UW one-yard line. Brewer (10-24, 94 yards, INT) rushed in for the score, but Northwestern could not convert on the point after.
Junior wideout Paul Hubbard fumbled on UW's next two drives, between which Northwestern added a 22-yard field goal to get the score to 10-9. Hubbard was injured on his second miscue and did not return.
Two possessions later, the Badgers added a touchdown when, on third-and-goal, senior quarterback John Stocco found junior wide receiver Luke Swan, who made a sensational catch in the back left corner of the endzone for his first career touchdown reception.
""You got to have that attitude —anytime the ball goes up in the air, that's your ball, you got to get it, and keep it,"" said Swan, who was able to create just enough separation between himself and the defender.
The Badgers took that 17-9 lead into halftime, knowing they could have been up by a considerably bigger margin if not for mistakes on the offensive side of the ball.
Thereafter, it was all Badgers. Mehlhaff hit a 42-yard field goal, and later in the third quarter, senior running back Dywon Rowan got into the action, finishing off a 73-yard drive with a four-yard run for a 27-9 UW lead.
""Everybody knows we're going to run the ball every game â_ we're going to run it a lot,"" Rowan later said. ""You basically got to stop us. That's the mentality we go in the game with.""
On Northwestern's very next drive, senior strong safety Joe Stellmacher jumped a passing lane, picked off a Brewer pass and, as he said, tongue-in-cheek, ""showed that brilliant speed going down the sideline"" 25 yards for his first interception returned for a touchdown.
Then, late in the game, freshman running back Lance Smith added another score for the Badgers when he cut back across the right side of the field for a 25-yard run. That rush gave UW 527 total offensive yards; it was the second straight game the Badgers eclipsed the 500 mark.
""We've got some confidence,"" Stocco said. ""We've played pretty well the last couple games, but that doesn't mean we're going to play well next week. It's only good if you build off of it.""
""I thought it was a great job by everybody out there today,"" he added. ""It got a little sloppy there in the first half, so that's something that we're disappointed about. But I thought we did a great job in the second half of playing a clean game.""
