Taylor-made victory for the Wisconsin Badgers

Da-news-now

RSS Reporter
Reporter
Member
Messages
5,396
Reaction score
311
What happens when Jonathan Taylor and AJ Taylor get going for the Wisconsin Badgers? You get a 45-14 victory over the New Mexico Lobos.

Both Taylor’s racked up career highs in yardage for the Badgers in Saturday’s win over the Lobos. Jonathan Taylor put up 253 yards and three touchdowns, while A.J. Taylor had 134 yards on just five receptions with a touchdown.

A.J.’s production was perhaps the more unexpected, if for only the fact that the Badgers passed just 13 times the entire game.

The Badgers offesne didn’t need pass much, as the run game amassed 417 of a total 568 yards in the win. However, early on there was plenty of question if that gameplan would be able to work.

“You feel it over the course of the game on offense,” said senior offensive lineman Michael Dieter. “You keep chugging away at runs, chugging away at runs. Defenses just don’t want to do that for four quarters and you really actually feel it.

“They don’t hit as hard as they used to, they don’t seem as bought in the more you keep hitting them with runs and hitting them with runs. It opens up big play-action plays. I think it’s just a slow, methodical flip. Obviously you want to do that from the start but if you have to do it over four quarters, so be it.”

UW couldn’t get out of it’s own way early on, with Jonathan Taylor fumbling inside the 10-yard line and the defense had trouble with the Lobos multiple looks on offense.

New Mexico was supposed to be a spread offense, but on the first drive of the game the old option offense out of the spread gave the Badgers plenty of issues.

The Lobos went on a 17-play drive that ran 7:38 off the clock, went 87 yards and resulted in a 11-yard touchdown pass to Delane Hart-Johnson. It was the first time this season the Badgers didn’t have the lead.

Wisconsin’s offense responded by pounding the ball on the Lobos defense on its first drive. However, the Badgers had to settle for a Rafael Gaglianone 26-yard field goal to make it 7-3 New Mexico with just 1:13 to play in the first quarter.

UW racked up 48 of its 568 total yards on the ground on that first drive alone.

However, it took awhile for all that yardage to really matter. After seeing themselves inside the red zone on their third drive, Jonathan Taylor fumbled inside the 10-yard line and lost it.

It’s become a theme of Taylor’s young career, but head coach Paul Chryst believes the response to adversity proves better than the loss of a fumble.

“Those are things you’ve got to — you’re going to be in those situations again, and you’ve got to just work at it,” said Chryst. “What you feel as a coach, not one of those guys is going out there and saying, ‘you know what, I’m going to try to fumble right here.’ So I think the whole thing is how do you respond?”

Taylor redeemed himself on the next drive though, having the vision to kick an inside run back to the outside for an untouched 16-yard run.

It was the only touchdown of the half for the Badgers, who went in to the intermission up just 10-7 despite dominating for most of the half on the stat sheet.

The stat sheet and the scoreboard got more in line in the second half, as the Badgers up up five touchdowns in the half en route to the victory. However, it didn’t look like it would start off that way.

On Wisconsin’s first drive of the half, quarterback Alex Hornibrook was intercepted on a ball that was tipped out of his hand and right in to a Lobos defenders hands.

But, UW’s defense responded with one of its three turnovers in the half, as redshirt freshman Scott Nelson picked off a pass at the two-yard line and returned it 22 yards to the Badgers 24-yard line.

That play seemed to spark everything, as Wisconsin’s offense ripped off five straight touchdown drives and the defense had two more

Taylor and the run game put up 234 yards in the second half and along with fullback Alec Ingold, UW ran for three touchdowns.

The game was capped off as redshirt freshman quarterback Danny Vanden Boom connected with true freshman wide receiver Taj Mustapha for each of their first career touchdowns.

Wisconsin will turn its attention to BYU next at Camp Randall. The game will take place at 2:30pm CT and air on ABC.

Continue reading...
 
Back
Top