That wasn’t the way 80,000 fans were supposed to be welcomed back to Camp Randall. Wisconsin opened the season with a 16-10 home loss to Penn State in a game where they had every chance to pull out a victory. The game, however, ended in justice with Penn State’s defense yet again stopping a promising Badger drive at the death.
There were numbers, such as first half time of possession, that would scream a vintage Wisconsin performance. It was in the biggest moments offensively where the Badgers failed to finish, as QB Graham Mertz looked uncomfortable in the red zone.
In the first half, the Wisconsin defense looked like the top-ten unit in the country that many expect them to be. Specifically with LB Jack Sanborn flying from sideline to sideline and at the line of scrimmage, the Badger defense stalled anything the Nittany Lions wanted to do early.
Then the second half came, and with it came a change of pace for QB Sean Clifford’s group. The Badger secondary was all of a sudden leaking, as chunk plays to WR Jahan Dotson helped give Penn State the win.
In a game where Wisconsin’s units looked night and day different from the first to the second half, let’s try to summarize the loss from a statistical perspective: