Wisconsin's win over Penn State was very exciting and will make for a very memorable game, but it's hard not to think that it didn't have to be that difficult. The Badgers essentially gifted Penn State 14 points on two dumb Colton Joseph interceptions. If those are even incompletions, the nature of the game completely flips on its head. And yet, somehow Wisconsin won despite those two interceptions.
Luke Fickell admitted this week that Wisconsin got away with two statistical categories that are not a recipe for winning. Wins will be hard to come by if the Badgers continue to screw up in these ways. The first is the turnover battle. The second is the rushing attack.
Wisconsin lost the turnover battle versus Penn State
Wisconsin had three turnovers. All three of them were Joseph interceptions; none of them were ideal. According to Karl Winter's interview with Joseph, "Two of his interceptions on Saturday were bad reads, trying to do too much, while one was the right read but a bad throw." All of them were costly, but two literally gave the Nittany Lions 14 points.
Penn State only had one turnover and an interception. The 3-1 turnover ratio is a really hard way to win football games, especially in the Big Ten, and Luke Fickell said it's not the way they want to build it for Wisconsin.
“We don’t want to try to win that way." Luke Fickell said, "That is not the identity that we want to try to overcome. I mean, we were minus two in the turnover margin, and we won the game. We don’t want to try to win that way.”
He doesn't stop there and he also says, the rushing attack wasn't good enough.
Related: Matt Campbell didn't give Wisconsin the credit it deserved after stunning Penn State
Wisconsin only had one more rushing yard than Penn State
“You know, we only won the rushing battle by one yard. It was 120 to 119." Luke Fickell explained about his Wisconsin offense, "So, you know, we don’t want to try to win that way. We want to be able to control the line of scrimmage. We want to be able to take care of the football. We want to be able to create turnovers. We don’t want to have to overcome those things.”
Wisconsin has yet to have a meaningful game of running the football, and that could end up being a problem down the road. The Badgers are currently second-to-last in the Big Ten in rushing yards per game. That's not the identity that Wisconsin was built on, and it's not actually the identity that Luke Fickell is trying to establish.
Actually, if you take out the quarterback rushes, the Nittany Lions won the rushing battle. Penn State had 96 non-quarterback rushing yards to Wisconsin's 81. Which is brutal to look at and needs to be fixed.
While the game was exciting and it turned out in Wisconsin's favor, the Badgers clearly got away with two things, and that can't continue against Michigan State. Win the turnover margin and win the rushing battle, clearly.
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