The original Trojan War was said to have lasted 10 years. If some Wisconsin homer were to write an Illiad about the Badgers’ victory over Troy, they would say this Trojan war lasted about an hour and a half until the road team was out of it.
The Wisconsin offense was a little slow to start. It came out with a clear mandate to establish the run, and it handed it off 11 times in the first quarter, with only three pass attempts and a botched snap.
Excluding that fumble, the Badgers averaged 7.2 yards per rush in that first quarter, and that threat of run made things a lot easier for their offense from then forward.
Still, in that first quarter, UW only put up seven points on three drives, only making it into Troy territory on their one scoring series.
“I think the slow start, I don't think we did a good job,” Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst said after the game. “We didn't convert on third down, and it’s hard to put drives together if you're not converting on third down.”
Chryst started to open up the passing game for his offense in the second quarter. They converted a fourth down conversion early in the second quarter, and the third down they did convert ended up as a rushing touchdown for redshirt senior quarterback Joel Stave.
“I thought that was big,” Stave said. “We really needed that. You didn’t want to go into half up seven to three, giving them the ball to start the next half. I thought we did a good job executing on that drive.”
Stave found a lot of success through the air in that second quarter, especially on first downs. He was 6-of-8 for 104 yards in the quarter, and 86 of those yards came on three first-down completions on the drive he referenced.
The strong, established running game with the recently invigorated passing attack carried over into the second half, and the Badgers were able to get into scoring position frequently, although they only came away with two more touchdowns en route to a 28-3 victory.
Chryst didn’t need his offense to put up 58 points for a second straight week, in large part because his defense played so well. The Trojans did a good job of moving the ball against them and getting plays off, but it was a “bend but don’t break” performance for Wisconsin’s defenders.
“I think they got some confidence about them, some resiliency about them,” Chryst said. “Certainly, there's some areas we are going to look at and we've got to clean up. But the last two weeks, they have done a good job and we have to keep building on that.”
Troy ran 15 more offensive plays than Wisconsin, but they were significantly less efficient, despite their quick-moving spread attack. Sophomore quarterback Brandon Silvers strung together some long, time-consuming drives that drove them down the field, but his Trojans couldn’t finish when they got into UW territory.
Troy only made it into the redzone once, where they settled for a field goal. The Badgers’ defense refused to let the Trojans into the endzone, led by the supplanted energy of true freshman linebacker Chris Orr, who came into the game late in the first quarter after starting inside linebacker, junior Leon Jacobs, was ejected on a questionable targeting penalty.
“It was pretty big,” Orr said after the game. “I think it came down more so to us as a unit, all 11 of us doing our job and trusting each other, allowing me and my other teammates to make those plays.”
Orr finished with a team-high 14 tackles, and it was evident that the entire defense got a boost from his presence on the field. Another UW targeting penalty led to another ejection, and the defense really seemed to give it that extra effort with a bigger chip on their shoulders.
Even a fire alarm that went off during the fourth quarter couldn’t extinguish the flame that drove the Wisconsin defense, and they held strong to the very end. It was a little bit slow getting going, but like the Greeks at war, the Badgers were able to beat down the Trojans.
