Alex Hornibrook Sets Completion Record

Wisconsin’s redshirt sophomore quarterback Alex Hornibrook played his best game of his young career on Saturday against BYU.  He set a completion record against the Cougars

He was nearly perfect in guiding Wisconsin football to comfortable 40-6 road win over the BYU Cougars.  His 94.7 percent completion percentage is the new completion record in program history.

Hornibrook was 18/19 passing for 256 yards and 4 touchdowns.  Most importantly, he didn’t turn the ball over.

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He spread the ball around well completing passes to eight different WR.  Here are how his yards per completion work out in the first three games:

• Week One (Utah State): 12.6 yards per completion (65.2 percent completion)
• Week Two (Florida Atlantic): 16.3 yards per completion (57.1 percent completion)
• Week Three (BYU): 14.2 yards per completion (94.7 percent completion)

The biggest difference today was in part mechanics.  Hornibrook was sliding comfortably in the pocket and stepping forward into his throws to drive the football.  In fact, all four touchdown throws came on Hornibrook fastballs throwing darts up the field.

It was also in part cerebral.  He was decisive and confident scanning the field and spreading the ball around.

Finally, we also saw a dedicate effort from Wisconsin to push the ball downfield.  The Badgers wore out the grass inside the numbers beating the BYU zone over the middle.

So what was the incompletion?  It came on a 2nd-and-9 from the Wisconsin 18 with 4:21 left in the second quarter.  Hornibrook looked for the young speedster Danny Davis over the middle.

He squeezed the ball into Davis in traffic between multiple Cougar defenders.  Yet, the freshman WR didn’t secure the catch and enabled a BYU defender to jostle the ball free.  It was correctly ruled incomplete and not a fumble.

On the very next play, Hornibrook went right back to Davis for 17 yards and a first down.  He then hit Troy Fumagalli for a 20 yard gain.  The Badgers ultimately finished a 10-play 83-yard 4:40 drive with a Hornibrook touchdown strike to Quintez Cephus.

So in reality, Davis makes a challenging but not too difficult catch in traffic and Hornibrook finishes the day perfect.

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Lets also give a quick shout to the offensive line and Micah Kapoi the replacement starter at OG.  They gave Hornibrook a nice clean pocket all game long.  In fact he was only sacked once and that was him holding the ball too long.