TURNOVERS TELL SAD TALE
Illinois gives ball away 5 times in 1st half; losing streak vs. Badgers at 9
MADISON, Wis. — No. 23 Wisconsin bounced back from a devastating loss to maintain its hopes of a West Division title and a return to the Big Ten championship game
Jonathan Taylor rushed for 159 yards and Taiwan Deal ran for 111 yards and two touchdowns as the Badgers (5-2, 3-1 Big Ten) took advantage of five first-half turnovers during a 49-20 rout of Illinois (3-4, 1-3) on Saturday.
“When you go on the road and you’re playing a good football team like we were, playing against the University of Wisconsin, there are some things that you have to be able to do,” Illinois coach Lovie Smith said. “No. 1, you have to protect the football. The turnover ratio, of course, is big each week, but offensively we needed to hold on to the ball. You can’t turn over the ball that many times.”
The Illini had committed five turnovers in their first six games.
Wisconsin was coming off a 38-13 loss at Michigan that buried its national championship hopes. Next week, the Badgers face a division matchup at Northwestern (4-3, 4-1), which rallied to edge Rutgers 18-15.
The Badgers have played in five of the seven Big Ten championship games, losing their last three appearances in Indianapolis, including a 27-21 loss to Ohio State last season.
“Indy is still in front of us. We can control all that by just winning football games,” Wisconsin offensive guard Michael Deiter said.
Wisconsin, which has won nine in a row against Illinois, had three interceptions and recovered two fumbles on the way to building a 28-10 halftime lead. Alex Hornibrook, coming off an awful outing in the loss at Michigan, threw three touchdown passes and two interceptions.
“Each game’s really different, so it’s not like we were trying to do something from last week into this week,” Hornibrook said. “We just kind of approach it as a new week and played well, I thought.”
Illinois turned Hornibrook’s second interception into a 10-yard scoring drive to make it 28-17 early in the third quarter, but Wisconsin countered with a pair of touchdowns to push the lead to 42-17.
The Badgers opened with an 11-play, 75yard scoring drive, capped by Alec Ingold’s one-yard run. On the ensuing possession, linebacker T.J. Edwards returned an interception 28 yards to Illinois’ 25, and two plays later freshman Aron Cruickshank scored on a 23-yard jet sweep to put Wisconsin up 14-0.
Illinois was 2-for-12 on third downs, and all three interceptions occurred on third down.
“The biggest thing was we knew they wanted to run the ball, so early on we had to do what we could to get them in third down and throw the ball,” Edwards said. “I thought we did a good job on the early downs and put them in tough spots.”