As we look back on Wisconsin Badgers football in the decade which is about to end, we begin our collection of retrospectives with the first year of the decade, 2010. In this season, Wisconsin beat then-No. 1 Ohio State, a game we wrote about earlier this year at Badgers Wire. Because we have already referenced the best game of the 2010 season, let’s look at the second-best moment from that campaign, the 31-30 win in Kinnick Stadium against the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Keep in mind a few details about that 2010 Wisconsin season: First, the Badgers were part of a three-team tie in the standings at the end of the regular season. Second, this was the last year before the Big Ten Championship Game, which meant that tiebreaker procedures would determine which team went to the Rose, Sugar, or Capital One (now Citrus) Bowls. Wisconsin got the Granddaddy against TCU. Ohio State got the Sugar against Arkansas. Michigan State got the short end of the stick against Alabama in the Cap One.
Wisconsin needed this win in Iowa City to forge the three-way tie and head to Pasadena. Without this win, the Badgers would have had to deal with an angry Bama team in the Capital One Bowl. (That 2010 season was the only time since Nick Saban’s first season at Alabama in which the Crimson Tide lost three games.)
The other obvious point to make about this win in Iowa City is that Iowa has been noted for busting up great seasons of other Big Ten teams. The Hawkeyes ruined Minnesota’s season in 2019. They kept Ohio State out of the playoff in 2017. They prevented Michigan from winning its first Big Ten division title in 2016. They prevented Penn State from having an unbeaten regular season in 2008. The Kinnick graveyard was waiting to add Wisconsin to its collection.
The Badgers almost died, but scored a gutsy win on a fake punt deep in their own territory. Brad Nortman ran for 17 yards on fourth and four from the Wisconsin 26 in the fourth quarter, sparking the winning drive in a come-from-behind triumph.
Wisconsin players loved Bret Bielema for pulling the trigger on the play, as reported in The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa):
“That was awesome. That was one of the reasons I came here,” Wisconsin linebacker Blake Sorensen said. “That doesn’t surprise me at all. He’s not afraid. That’s a coach you love to play for.”
Bielema, typically, was pretty pleased with himself:
“We had seen that they had gone with two edge pressures and were covering down,” Bielema said. “We made the call once I saw them send out the punt return unit. Great execution, great faith.”
Iowa drove into Wisconsin territory in pursuit of a field goal, getting just inside the Badger 40, but the Hawkeyes used their final timeout and then threw a pass in bounds, short of the sticks. Wisconsin’s sure tackling and Kirk Ferentz’s poor game management caused the final seconds to expire, sealing UW’s huge win.
The decade in Wisconsin football ended with a Rose Bowl bid. It also began with one — not just because of the 2010 win over Ohio State, but the win in Kinnick Stadium as well.