The Badgers earned a cathartic victory at home against Purdue, snapping their own loosing streak and extending their winning streak over the Boilermakers to 18 games.
BadgerBlitz.com has grades and game balls from Wisconsin's Week 6 win to move to 3-2 on the season.
OFFENSE: A
It certainly wasn't perfect; the Badgers opened the game with two straight punts and Braedyn Locke threw two interceptions in the first half. But as Wisconsin learned the hard way last week, it's not about how you start, it's about how you finish. And boy, did the Badgers finish in that second half. Wisconsin scored on all five of its legitimate drives in the second half, and at one point strung five straight touchdown drives together. The offense racked up 589 yards and did so with superb balance, picking up 228 yards on the ground with another 361 coming by air.
The ground game hummed all day, a rather unsurprising development considering there are only four teams in the country allowing more rushing yards on a game-by-game basis than Purdue. Tawee Walker was the headliner, with three touchdown runs and 94 yards on 17 carries. Meanwhile, Darrion Dupree, Cade Yacamelli and Dilin Jones all contributed as well, with the freshman Jones accounting for the longest run, a 47-yard scamper. That was the biggest run in terms of yards, but the biggest run emphatically was Yacamelli's 30-yard touchdown run on 4th-and-1. Wisconsin notably lined up in the pistol and let the redshirt sophomore go to work, as he burst through a hole, into his own lineman and into the end zone for one of many exclamation points on this win.
The passing game, however, is where the magic happened for Wisconsin. Locke had a career day – Saturday was the first time he hit 300 yards, three touchdowns or 60 percent completion — and he looked more and more comfortable as the game wore on. So much so, in fact, that he had a string of 12 straight completions in the second half. Locke made some poor decisions early, but he really settled in and looked extremely sharp in the second half. He aired the football out with confidence, and the Badgers' offense finally resembled an air raid, with extremely fast and twitchy receivers catching the ball in space and doing the rest themselves.
There were some great catches by Wisconsin wideouts, most notably Trech Kekahuna's 25-yard touchdown he caught in the end zone with a defender all over him. Still, it was the Badgers' ability to generate explosive catch-and-runs, like a 69-yarder to Kekahuna that scored, or the 52-yarder to Vinny Anthony that scored, that really opened up the passing game.
There were a few other noticeable developments on offense. For starters, Wisconsin was without Will Pauling and Bryson Green for much of the game, as both receivers were helped off the field in some capacity. Pauling returned but didn't log a catch; the same goes for Green. Still, there was no drop-off — in fact, the Badgers receivers played noticeably better with a top three of Kekahuna, Anthony and CJ Williams.
Speaking of Williams, he had four catches for 60 yards including a massively important leaping grab at the one-yard line that set up an easy Walker touchdown run right before halftime.
That sequence also felt noticeably different. Some questionable clock management had time running out on Wisconsin after that Williams catch, but the offense hurried to the line and imposed its will up front with the handoff to Walker. Given the Badgers' struggles in short-yardage situations this season, it was encouraging to see the offensive line take matters into its own hands on that play.
This is a bad Purdue defense, but Wisconsin's offense simply started having fun and became far too much for the Boilermakers to defend by air or ground. Phil Longo may have even cracked a smile on the sideline.
