MADISON, WIS. -- One would think Wisconsin would like to pass over its fourth quarter performance against Notre Dame on Saturday. That final 14:01 of regulation produced 31 unanswered points, four turnovers, two pick-sixes and a 96-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in favor of the Fighting Irish on way to a 41-13 win over the Badgers. A competitive contest deteriorated into an ugly finale after a special teams gaffe and hope faded at an accelerated pace with each takeaway and score.
But that's not what defensive end Matt Henningsen thinks.
"You don't ignore it," Henningsen said on Monday. "Obviously a lot of people say, 'Oh you flush it down the toilet and forget about it.' No, you look at it, you analyze. You say, 'OK, what happened here? What did you do wrong? What could we have done better? What can each individual have done to make this play better, to have the desired outcome rather than a poor outcome like what happened at the end of the game, right?'
"As a group, we just got to do better with eliminating mistakes and eliminating big plays going against us."
Wisconsin held tight with Notre Dame for over three quarters, even taking a 13-10 lead with under 15 minutes to play on a Collin Larsh 27-yard field goal. Then running back Chris Tyree took a Jack Van Dyke kickoff, sprinted to the left side of the field through a gap in UW's coverage, and the game's fortunes changed.
Not all was negative from the defeat -- Wisconsin's defense racking up six sacks and 12 total tackles for loss against Notre Dame's offense, for example -- but safety Collin Wilder told reporters after the game that the finish was "absolutely atrocious."
BadgerBlitz.com asked five Badgers on Monday, Henningsen included, about how they processed the game's deterioration into a loss in the day or so after, along with just what went right, what went wrong, and then looking ahead to the next opponent in No. 14 Michigan.
Senior inside linebacker Jack Sanborn stated "it's been the same as every week, I'd say." Some reflection took place, but the fourth-year Badger also noted the process of film study and moving on with more to play for.
"Obviously, following the game, it was kind of a long bus ride home," Sanborn said. "Kind of have time to reflect and kind of the negative thoughts go in your head about like what happened here, but then just understanding that this was the third game. We got a stretch of nine straight games here that you can't dwell on the past, and I think we understand that. We got to move on. We came in Sunday and we watched the film, looked at what we have to correct, what we have to get better at, and we got to get better at that stuff now.
"We're going in now to the fourth game. We have to get better at it now. So I think this week is gonna be big. You go into prepping for the next team. It's a new opponent every week."
Players like Henningsen, Sanborn, left tackle Tyler Beach and tight end Clay Cundiff referenced studying what happened from the game in some form. Players need to "put our noses down and go to work," according to defensive end Rodas Johnson, while trusting the coaches, referencing the team's winning precedent in the past.
Beach, from an individual vantage point, watched the game film on the bus ride home and went over it similarly to what he does in film sessions with associate head coach Joe Rudolph with what he did wrong, what he did correct, and what needs to be cleaned up.
"Then the first thought in my head is move on. The game's over," Beach, a redshirt senior, said. "Clean up what I did bad on, and then move on to this next week. That's kind of everybody's vision right now is you can't dwell on the past with these things. So it's just kind of move on to the next target."
Beach believes there is an urgency with each game, but "our biggest thing is just finish" for this week, whether that's blocks, running and passing the ball. Is it hard to not let rough feelings linger thereafter?
"Yeah, sometimes you dwell on things. We always talk about, the thought after the thought," Beach said. "You think like, 'Oh, what if we would have? What if we should have?' You can't think like that because then you start getting down on yourself. You do that in the game if you're thinking oh, well I should have done this on a play that you just ran, and you're on to the next play, you're already not thinking about the play that you're at.
"So it's always just being where your feet [are] at, being where you are in a game or even in a season, just knowing we got the next thing. That's done."
Wisconsin cannot look back upon the last quarter of the Notre Dame loss, or a performance overall where it gained only 314 yards, converted just one of 14 third down conversions, or saw five of its turnovers translate to 31 Notre Dame points. The "next target" Beach alluded to comes in the form of No. 14 Michigan. The Wolverines sit 4-0 with as they prepare to head to Madison for a cross-divisional showdown inside Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday (11 a.m. CT, FOX).
"Yeah, that fourth quarter, it definitely hurt," Cundiff said. "We don't like to put that out there and not finishing. The next day, we come in, we watch the film, evaluate it. We definitely all have some things to clean up on offense, but I mean coming in today, it's gone. It's over with, and we're getting ready for Michigan now."
