IOWA CITY - Back in the locker room following yet another draining loss, Keeanu Benton and John Torchio were shell shocked.

The scoreboard flashed 24-10 in favor of Iowa in a game in which the Badgers limited the Hawkeyes to 146 total yards of offense.

“It’s tough because you’re in the locker room thinking, ‘damn, what were our minuses?’” Torchio said. “And you kind of think as a defense, what were our minuses? I don’t know, maybe a couple of missed tackles, but we got to go back to the drawing board and see what we can do. How can we help our offense out with field position or some takeaways?”

That’s about the only other production you could have asked for from the defense. The unit tallied *just* one takeaway to go along with an afternoon that included six sacks, 11 tackles for loss, a forced fumble and just 2.1 yards per play for Iowa's offense.

The four scoring drives for the Hawkeyes began at the UW 17-yard line, UW 18-yard line and Iowa 47-yard line. The other was an interception returned for a touchdown in the second quarter.

“It’s really tough,” Benton added. “You know you put everything out there and you don’t come away with a win. That’s always tough… I’ve felt this way before. Just giving your all and not getting the result you set out.”

Asked if he's ever been a part of a game like this, Torchio turned to the 2020 season. In the team’s three losses that season, Wisconsin averaged just 6.7 points per game.

While the defense wasn’t as dominant during that three-game stretch as it was against Iowa, the lack of a positive special teams unit or consistent offense has haunted UW for years.

Point to quarterback play - the offense as a whole - or special teams, and any combination of the three has made it tough for UW to get over the hump, or even play well enough this season to finish atop a woeful Big Ten West.

“It’s got to be emphasized all year round,” head coach Jim Leonhard said in regards to coming through in big games. “You have to get your guys comfortable in close games, in tough situations. That would be a huge emphasis of mine all year round. I think you have to in order to win close games, which is what you’d anticipate in the Big Ten. You know you’re going to get into some battles.

"When the weather turns you know the room for error gets lower, so that’s going to be a huge emphasis and it has been since I’ve taken over. I’m not saying it wasn’t before but you have to get comfortable in uncomfortable situations.”

The final score leaves behind a two-score point differential. To anyone who didn’t watch the game, that would indicate Iowa was in control. The reality of the four quarters played in Iowa City is the Badgers were in front or only down four points for three quarters of play.

Piecing together one more touchdown drive or even finding a way to flip field position could have been the difference. Instead, the running game rushed for 51 yards on 1.6 yards per carry and Graham Mertz completed 46 percent of his passes for 176 yards and turned it over twice.

“It’s kind of what we’re trying to figure out right now,” Braelon Allen said when asked what the program has to do to win big games. “That was kind of my main question. We had chances to win, we had an opportunity to win. Just have to play better. Defense played their ass off the whole game and was getting us the ball back consistently. We have the best pass rusher in the country who had three sacks in the first half.

"We have to do something with that when we get the ball back. Got to put in the end zone. So I guess offensively, at least, just got to execute and figure out how to be better.”

The special teams failed to add any positive boost, either. In fact the group was outplayed in every facet. In what was a mismatch coming into the contest, the Hawkeyes provided a blueprint to Leonhard on what a game-changing special teams unit can look add.

On the game's seventh punt, Torchio got beat as the last line of defense leading to a blocked punt. Iowa would score two plays later.

“That was absolutely my guy and I feel terrible about it,” Torchio said. “That was my fault on the blocked punt.”

The game-sealing score came after Dean Engram let a punt fall and trickle to the one-yard line. After a drive stalled, the coverage gave up a 41-yard punt return to set up Iowa at the UW 18. The return began with a punt that Andy Vujnovich was supposed to direct to the right but went left.

“That was something we knew coming into the week that it was going to be a field-position game,” Vujnovich said. “That was something that kept Iowa in a lot of its games and we just needed to be up to that level. That could have helped pin them back more than what we did today.”

Whether or not Leonhard - if hired beyond this year - elects to add a dedicated special teams coach, it’s clear the unit has to be high on his list of priorities.

“I think we need to have a dynamic special teams unit,” he said. “Whatever that takes, it takes. If that’s someone dedicated to it full time but you need to be able to create momentum with your special teams… As things get closer and you play great teams, that needs to be a factor in the game and unfortunately today it was a factor in the wrong direction.”

With the question at head coach likely a matter of when and not if Leonhard is named the next head coach, the former walk-on turned All-American will be left with much on his plate.

“You wish you could have all the lessons come after wins and force your guys to stay focused that way, but sometimes you come up short and our guys are workers,” he said. “They care about each other, they’re committed to this thing and they’re going to find a way to show up next week, I promise.

"I think we have some guys that are growing into that and we’ve learned a lot about this football team through the first half of the year and think we’ve applied a lot of the lessons that we’ve learned in the couple of games we got hot there. We have to learn from adversity from a loss now.”

_________________________________________________

*Chat about this article in The Badgers' Den

*Check out our videos, interviews, and Q&As on our YouTube channel

*Subscribe and listen to the BadgerBlitz.com podcast (as seen on Apple, Google, Spotify and wherever you listen to podcasts)

*Follow us on Twitter: @McNamaraRivals, @TheBadgerNation, @RaulV45, @pete_brey12, @seamus_rohrer

*Like us on Facebook