Wisconsin’s 2018 regular season might have been a disappointment, but they went out on a high note on Thursday night in New York City, beating the Miami Hurricanes 35-3 in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl.

It was the second year in a row that the Badgers (8-5, 5-4 Big Ten) squared off against the Hurricanes (7-6, 4-4 ACC) in the postseason, following their 34-24 win in the 2017 Orange Bowl at the end of last season. But while the Hurricanes were out for a bit of payback, the Badgers dominated the rematch almost from start to finish.

It wasn’t a perfect performance by Wisconsin’s offense as they left points on the board in the first half and squandered a chance to put Miami away after going up 14-0 less than five minutes in to the game. But the Badgers were able to fall back on their defense, which forced five turnovers out of the Miami offense (including four interceptions). That gave the Badgers enough time to work through some early mistakes of their own on offense until Jonathan Taylor was able to really get rolling.

Wisconsin’s star running back finished with 205 rushing yards and scored one touchdown in the game on 27 carries, averaging 7.6 yards per rush against a Miami defense that came in to the game allowing just 3.2 yards per carry as a team. The Hurricanes had no answer for Taylor - and allowed three other UW players to score a touchdown on the ground - running back Taiwan Deal, fullback Alec Ingold, and quarterback Jack Coan also added rushing touchdowns for the Badgers in the second half.

As for Coan, the sophomore made the most out of his fifth game of the season for the Badgers. Wisconsin’s running game was working so well the Badgers hardly needed Coan to throw the ball, but when they did the Sayville, New York, native completed 6 of 11 passes for 73 yards, including one touchdown pass to wide receiver Kendric Pryor in the first quarter.

The UW defense also did more than their fair share in keeping the Miami offense under wraps. Wisconsin landed the first punch when safety Eric Burrell intercepted quarterback Malik Rosier’s pass on Miami’s first offensive snap of the game, returning the ball to the 7-yard line before Taylor scored his touchdown to give the Badgers a 14-0 lead. The Badgers would pick off Rosier two more times in the game before Miami head coach Mark Richt benched him for redshirt freshman N’Kosi Perry, who also threw an interception in the fourth quarter. By the end of the game Miami’s quarterbacks combined to complete just six of their 17 passes for 48 yards.

By the end of the game Wisconsin’s defense had held the Hurricanes to just 169 total yards on just 40 plays - and 62 of those yards came on one long run by Rosier in the first quarter that set up Miami’s only points of the game, which came on a 33-yard field goal. The Badgers limited Miami to just six first downs in the game and allowed only three conversions out of 11 attempts on third down, allowing the UW offense to almost double up the Hurricanes in the time of possession battle - Wisconsin held the ball for almost 40 of the game’s 60 minutes.

It was a feel-good game for the Badgers on both sides of the ball at the end of a season where they missed out on most of their major preseason goals. But in beating the Hurricanes for a second consecutive year the Badgers found a way to close out the year on a high note - sending off their senior class with a win in a bowl game for the fifth year in a row.

___________________________________________________

John Veldhuis covers Wisconsin football, basketball and recruiting for BadgerBlitz.com on the Rivals.com network. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnVeldhuis.