MADISON, WIS. -- No. 14 Michigan spoiled Barry Alvarez Day for Wisconsin.

UW, hampered by turnovers and miscues, fell 38-17 on Saturday inside Camp Randall Stadium.

BadgerBlitz.com presents some key takeaways from the defeat that drops Wisconsin to 1-3 on the season and 0-2 within Big Ten play.

Wisconsin's offense started the game with four straight 3-and-outs, with its biggest gain being three yards. The next two drives to end the first half netted 141 yards, 10 points, and dare I say, some excitement.

That was about it.

Part of the continued inconsistencies can be blamed on the pressure put on Wisconsin's quarterbacks. Michigan tallied six sacks on the day in addition to seven quarterback hurries. It will be interesting to see just what Pro Football Focus reports as total pressures by the Wolverines, as pressure came consistently.

Center Kayden Lyles said after the game that teams will always bring something that's different than what they have previously shown on tape, and Wisconsin had to adjust to it.

"That's just what it is. That's just game planning," Lyles said. "They just brought a little different pressure than what we were used to, so we just had to adapt to it."

One sack early in the third quarter by defensive back Daxton Hill and linebacker Josh Ross knocked quarterback Graham Mertz out of the game with what UW designated as a chest injury. He did not return to the game and head coach Paul Chryst noted that the signal caller went to the hospital.

Michigan then sacked Chase Wolf three times on the day, which included his second-half fumble that led to a Jake Moody field goal.

BadgerBlitz.com noted during its Pre-Snap Read that Wisconsin needed to win the turnover battle on Saturday.

It did not.

UW coughed up the ball three times on Saturday, leading to officially 11 points for Michigan in the stats book. A mistake on punt return coverage (more on special teams later), a fumble and an interception all piled on to what amounted to extra opportunities for Harbaugh's team to capitalize.

On the flip side, Wisconsin only created one turnover -- an Alexander Smith interception -- but it was late in the fourth quarter with the game out of reach. Though creating some pressure, Wisconsin also did not sack a Wolverine quarterback in the defeat. That may be the one criticism of the defense right now is that inability to generate the sudden change situations.

Wisconsin's defense has been its strength this season, particularly its front seven. It's also hard to completely fault it when opponents have short fields to work with to begin drives. However, the unit also gave up more big plays through the air on Saturday.

Michigan came in averaging 10.1 yards per attempt and 16 yards per completion. On Saturday, UW, overall, gave up five plays of 15 or more yards through the air -- three went for 34 yards or more -- and the Wolverines tallied 253 yards on a combined 18-of-30 passing with a trio of touchdowns.

The first big play came when quarterback Cade McNamara hit wide receiver Cornelius Johnson for a 34-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter off of a flea flicker.

"We knew early on they were gonna try to get to something where they try to get a touchdown early, and that was their play," cornerback Faion Hicks said. "We weren't ready for it, and they scored. The corners kind of fell asleep on it. That's on us, that's on the DBs. We have to be better on that, but that was their play.

"We knew they were gonna try to find something, something tricky early on to kind of gain momentum, and that was their play."

McNamara later connected with wide receiver Roman Wilson for a 38-yard gain in the third quarter that helped set up Michigan's second touchdown of the day four plays later.

Then in the fourth quarter and with the game in hand, quarterback J.J. McCarthy aired out a 56-yard touchdown to wide receiver Daylen Baldwin.

Two mistakes in Chris Haering's units led to six Michigan points in the first half, and Wisconsin right now simply does not have much margin for error in contests like this.

UW's defense held its ground on a series, but a Michigan punt hit true freshman safety Hunter Wohler near the goal line in the second quarter. Wolverines linebacker Joey Velazquez recovered it at the UW 5. The team is lucky Jim Leonhard's unit once again held an opponent out of the end zone, only allowing a field goal in the process, but it still added to what at times felt like an insurmountable deficit.

Then after Wisconsin got on the scoreboard with a Collin Larsh 34-yard field goal to make it 10-3, Jack Van Dyke's errant kickoff went out of bounds before the end zone. That allowed Michigan to take over at its own 35-yard line and get down the field to once again make it a 10-point advantage with Moody's 47-yard field goal.

An onside-like kick almost spelled disaster for Wisconsin after that Moody boot as well.

Wisconsin held Michigan to 6-of-19 on third-down conversions. However, Jim Harbaugh's offense converted on 4-of-5 fourth-down chances that extended drives. The distance on any of those fourth-down tries was two yards or fewer.

Michigan converted on two fourth-down opportunities on a key third quarter drive, which ended with McCarthy sneaking it in for a touchdown from one-yard out on the second 4th-and-goal chance.

Safety Collin Wilder discussed whether he thought the unit should be better on holding on those two downs.

"It was a weird feeling coming off the field today because I feel like they didn't really run all over us necessarily," Wilder said. "They had a couple passes, a couple of big play passes, but I didn't feel like walking off that field we got our tails whooped.

"Defensively, I didn't feel that way, but I did feel like they got to 3rd-and-one, 4th-and-one a lot today, and drives just trickled into the red zone. That's how I felt. They did a good job of just pounding the rock and getting to those 3rd-and-ones and 4th-and-ones, and then giving their offense another chance to keep the drive alive, and that's where we got to do a better job. There were a couple of 3rd-and-longs that we gave up. You know, we got to get off the field in those situations, and that's where I talked about last week about the defense doing their part, we got to do our part. We got to do it."