In some games, a team can rely on one player or one unit to carry them to victory. A running back or an impenetrable defense can win a lot of games on their own in college football. For the Wisconsin Badgers, they needed all three phases to beat the Maryland Terrapins 31-24 Saturday in College Park, MD.
At the beginning of the game, it didn’t seem like any of the Badgers’ units came to play. The opening kickoff was kicked intentionally short, and it was returned 19 yards to give Maryland the ball near midfield. Their offense went three-and-out on their first drive, and the punt that followed went only 24 yards.
Then the UW defense got sloppy and let the Terrapins go ahead on the early touchdown. It appeared that no one on Wisconsin was doing their job, and Maryland was able to take advantage.
The Badgers needed to find some momentum, and it didn’t look like it was going to come from their offense or their defense. After the Terrapins’ touchdown, they kicked it off to sophomore kickoff returner Natrell Jamerson and, 98 yards later, the score was tied.
“Jamer’ can run,” head coach Paul Chryst said after the game. “It was big for that group, not just for ‘Trell. Natrell’s name goes on that return, but it’s pretty cool, the excitement that all those guys had, even the ones that weren’t on the field.”
The excitement reverberated on the sidelines, and the Badgers’ defense came out and made a stop. The offense started to stall on their next drive, but another huge special teams play jump-started them once more.
On fourth-and-one, they lined up to punt, but the snap went directly to senior outside linebacker Joe Schobert, who took it and ran for 57 yards, setting up a touchdown run on the next play by redshirt junior running back Dare Ogunbowale.
“Initially, I was just trying to get the one yard,” Schobert told UWBadgers.com reporter Patrick Herb. “I looked up and there was a bunch of green grass in front of me, and I just tried to get as much as I could.”
Wisconsin’s special teams came to play, but their offense and defense still couldn’t catch up. They only could garner a field goal on top of the two special teams-led touchdowns, and their defense let Maryland tie it up at 17 heading into halftime.
“I thought, offensively, we didn’t do anything really to get in rhythm the whole first half,” Chryst said. “I think Joel [Stave] knew too that it was hard to get into a rhythm with the way the first half played out.”
Through the first two quarters, the redshirt senior quarterback was just 3-of-8 for 20 yards with an interception. Outside of the Schobert run, the offense only had 36 rushing yards. Something needed to change at halftime to get this team going again.
“We went through it and made a couple of adjustments,” Chryst said. “The first third down was something we just talked about at halftime, and guys went with it pretty good.”
The offense wasn’t the only unit in need of a boost, though. The UW defense let the Terrapins run for over 100 yards in the first half, and they needed to find their moxy once again.
“The coaches came in and let us know,” Schobert said. “First of all, made the adjustments and wrote ‘swag’ on the board and said we have to come out in the second half and play with swagger.”
“Vince [Biegel] gave a really passionate speech, trying to get everybody fired up, and we came out here with an edge to try and take advantage of that.”
The Badgers came out of the break motivated and prepared. They strung together two long drives that ate up most of the third quarter clock and put seven points on the board, while their defense held Maryland scoreless.
That carried over into the fourth quarter as Wisconsin’s offense found the end zone once again, led by a reinvigorated Joel Stave. After his disappointing start, he went 12-of-16 for 168 yards and a touchdown in the second half.
His offense kept the Badgers in front while their defense stood strong until a late surge by the Terrapins brought the game within seven. The UW special teams almost blew it on the ensuing onside kick that Maryland returned for a touchdown, but it was called back with an offsides penalty, and Wisconsin got the ball and ran out the clock.
It started with the special teams, and it was almost ended with the special teams, but all three phases came to play for the Badgers. It took them a few quarters to get going, but this was a team win for Wisconsin.
