With a chance to make serious moves in the Big Ten West after Illinois lost earlier in the day, Wisconsin turned in perhaps its worst showings of the season offensively and on special teams in Iowa City.

Below, BadgerBlitz.com grades Wisconsin's performance and hands out game balls.

Simply not a passing performance from Wisconsin’s offense today. The running game wasn’t there. The passing attack was nowhere to be found. There was nothing for this unit to hang its hat on Saturday in Iowa City.

Graham Mertz’s struggles are nothing new, but they’ve been dormant for a few weeks. Nothing like a great opportunity to somehow make noise in the Big Ten West for those struggles to reappear. It wasn’t just the turnovers this time. Mertz was off all afternoon and into the evening, underthrowing, overthrowing and just not connecting with his receivers. There were several times, like on passes intended for Keontez Lewis and Jack Eschenbach, that he clearly wasn’t on the same page with his pass catchers. Then throw in the two interceptions, one taken back to the house on a horribly telegraphed pass, and Mertz might’ve just played his worst game of the season.

The running game completely disappearing is certainly disquieting. Braelon Allen couldn’t get anything going, finishing with just 40 rushing yards on 17 carries. Often, Iowa bottled up the play and Allen was forced to try to bounce it outside to little avail. Even without sacks, the Badgers rushed for just 71 yards on an average of 2.6 yards-per-carry.

It was a brutal performance for the offensive line as well. Forget the non-existent run blocking; this unit struggled to keep Mertz clean all night against Iowa’s disruptive front. Not a single position on Wisconsin’s offense had a positive showing Saturday.