Homecoming night flared with fireworks and noise Saturday night as the Wisconsin Badgers 2-4 (0-3) took the field at Camp Randall against the Iowa Hawkeyes 4-2 (2-1). But excitement for Wisconsin football was nowhere to be found by the end of the evening, and in an era of seemingly never-ending lows, the Badgers found the bottom again, falling lifelessly to the Hawkeyes 37-0.
Iowa was narrowly favored coming into Saturday. But what was supposed to be a tough matchup among longtime rivals turned out to be Badger head coach Luke Fickell's worst nightmare.
“That’s as low as it can be. I apologize,” Fickell said. “I’m dumbfounded in a lot of ways, but that’s my job. This is a game we’ve been talking about since January. It was something that, emotionally, we knew we had to be ready for, and we were not. So, I’m crushed, disappointed in myself and our team.”
Wisconsin prepared all offseason for the game, but they seemingly gave the night away in the first quarter.
With 3:52 remaining in the first quarter, quarterback Hunter Simmons was picked off by Iowa defensive lineman Bryce Hawthorn at the Wisconsin 24-yard line. Three plays later, Iowa scored a touchdown to take a 10-0 lead.
On the Badgers’ next possession, Simmons made a poor decision on a screen pass and was intercepted by Iowa defensive lineman Aaron Graves, who took the ball 35 yards to the Wisconsin 1-yard line. On the next play, Iowa quickly bumped the lead up to 17-0.
At the end of the quarter, Wisconsin cornerback Ricardo Hallman made a great play in double coverage to intercept Iowa quarterback Mark Gronowski near the 35-yard line. Hallman’s interception could have sparked some momentum in Wisconsin’s favor, but their offensive possession quickly went haywire.
Wisconsin immediately gave the ball back to Iowa when a backwards pass from Simmons sailed over Darrion Dupree, resulting in a fumble recovered by Iowa at the Wisconsin 28-yard line. Despite Iowa powering its way through the Badgers’ defensive line, the defense was able to limit the Hawkeyes’ conversion this time to just a field goal, making it 20-0 by the end of the second quarter.
Gronowski pieced together a drive at the end of the half, setting up a 49-yard field goal and extending the Hawkeye lead 23-0.
Iowa added rushing touchdowns in each of the final two quarters to cap a dominant 37-0 win and hand the Badgers their fourth straight loss.
“No easy fix” for Badgers woes
Sloppy play on both sides of the ball defined Wisconsin’s night.
“We made some really poor decisions and they made some pretty good plays, obviously, early on,” Fickell said. “And we're just not a team that can overcome those things, and we cannot put ourselves in those positions, in those situations, and have any chance to be able to recover, both offensively, defensively and as a whole group.”
Wisconsin’s offense eventually finished with six punts, two turnovers on downs, two interceptions and a fumble.
“We can hope and believe that had that not started the way it did with turnovers, [the game] at least would have been a hell of a lot different,” Fickell said when asked about the turnovers that were served on a silver platter to Iowa. “It’s just not fair that we weren’t able to at least put ourselves in a position where we could make it a damn football game.”
Meanwhile, when the Hawkeyes were on offense, they used their physicality and toughness to outplay Wisconsin’s defense.
Running back Kamari Moulton led the way for Iowa with 96 rushing yards and a touchdown on 15 carries, as well as three receptions for 29 yards, while running back Xavier Williams added two touchdowns. Gronowski finished 17/24 for 107 passing yards with an interception and rushing touchdown.
Wisconsin’s quarterback situation still seems shaky, as Fickell is unable to appoint the right quarterback for the right games.
“We were wheeling on both sides. Where we were at and what we needed to do, we still felt like [Hunter] gave us the best chance,” Fickell said. “You’re probably right, it’s something we have to take a good, hard look at and no disrespect to Hunter but there probably was an opportunity or situation where we should have went in the other direction [of playing O’Neil].”
Iowa kept Simmons’s pass options and gaps for Wisconsin running backs to run through so limited that the Badgers only crossed the 50-yard line on three of their drives in the entirety of the game.
So is this truly the lowest point Wisconsin football can get to?
“There is no such thing as an easy fix and this is not going to be one. We’re not the kind of team that can come back from the mistakes we made in the first seven minutes of the game,” Fickell said. “We got hell of a long way to go and there’s only one way to go. It’s through it and it’s up.”
With this loss marking the ninth straight loss to a Power Four team for Wisconsin, the Badgers will need to step up to avoid further embarrassment. In their next six games, Wisconsin will play four ranked opponents, including No. 1 Ohio State next week at Camp Randall.
