Immediately following the Badgers' 83-20 trouncing of Indiana last Saturday, accusations of poor sportsmanship began to rain down upon head coach Bret Bielema and his team.
One of the first men to defend the Wisconsin football team, though, was the man who stood to take the most embarrassment from the defeat—Indiana head coach Bill Lynch.
""It was our responsibility to stop them,"" Lynch said. ""We didn't do a good job of that and we didn't take care of the ball.""
And why is Lynch a reliable judge of the Badgers' sportsmanship? Because he stood in blustery Camp Randall Stadium for the entire 60 minutes of Saturday's game and watched every play unfold.
Now, I can't tell you which writer was or was not watching the game, but based on more than a few of the comments, it would appear some of the most vocal never saw a snap.
Particularly in New York, some have taken it upon themsleves to be the referees in mercy and compassion, notably The New York Times' William C. Rhoden and The New York Post's Phil Mushnick.
As someone who was present for the entire game, I have to disagree.
Look at the beginning of the second half, for instance. With the Badgers leading 38-10, freshman Jared Abbrederis fielded the opening kickoff at his own 24 and turned in a fantastic 52-yard return to the Indiana 24 yard line.
Was Abbrederis really out to humiliate Indiana? Should he have just sat down at midfield to give Indiana's defense a fighting chance?
Sophomore Montee Ball then proceeded to string together back-to-back rushes of seven and 15 yards to bring Wisconsin within two yards of the end zone. Once again, if Ball only had the mercy to ignore the gaping holes Indiana refused to fill, he would have just stopped running after a yard or two.
A two-yard touchdown pass to Jake Byrne only continued the Badgers' onslaught of big plays.
Wisconsin's next offensive possession started with over 26 minutes left in the game. It's hard to argue that the Badgers should have taken a knee for the rest of the contest, and it took Wisconsin just two minutes to score again.
Following a rare long drive for Indiana (a full three minutes) and a Hoosier field goal, the Badgers put together a nine-play touchdown drive—powered by the ground game—followed by a field goal on their next posession.
With just over 11 minutes remaining in the game and the Hoosiers pinned deep in their own territory following a booming 70 yard kick-off, junior defensive back Aaron Henry picked off Indiana quarterback Dusty Kiel and ran it back for a touchdown.
His mother was in the stands for the very first time to witness her son play as a Badger, but maybe he shouldn't have shown compassionless greed by running the ball all the way back for a touchdown.
And then there's the 74-yard touchdown reception late in the fourth quarter. Enough has been said about this play to misconstrue the story behind it. The quarterback, Jon Budmayr—who had thrown a total of seven passes in his collegiate career prior to Saturday's game—threw up a bomb to his last option. Surely, this is the exact situation any coach would envision when trying to run up the score.
And the final touchdown? Nate Tice, a redshirt junior who is anything but a threat to scramble, ran virtually untouched into the end zone from 17 yards out. Surely any man with morals would have simply stopped running and refused to score.
Interestingly, Wisconsin shattered the program's previous record of points scored in a modern-era game, but came well short of the total yards record—598 was only good enough for 11th best.
Indiana simply made too many costly mistakes and gave the Badgers a short field to work with the entire game, while the Hoosiers could just not seem to tackle Wisconsin's running backs.
On paper, does this game look malicious? Absolutely. However, it's best not to assume the full story before you know all the facts, just as it's best not to assume writers always know what they're talking about.
Think UW ran up the score? E-mail Mark at mdbennett2@dailycardinal.com.
