The Wisconsin Badgers shocked the world on Saturday with a 24-20 comeback win on the road over the then-No. 13 Penn State Nittany Lions, improving to 3-1 on the season.
It was an incredible feat for the Badgers, who were trailing by two scores midway through the fourth quarter after Colton Joseph threw his third interception of the night. According to ESPN Analytics’s win probability, Penn State had a 98.5 percent chance to win after the interception.
But the Badgers forced a three-and-out in just
1:07, then marched down the field 75 yards in 10 plays, with Joseph hitting Eugene Hilton on 3rd & 10 for an 11-yard touchdown to bring the Badgers within three.
After another three-and-out, which was Penn State’s fourth in a row, the Badgers got the ball with 2:28 left, needing only a field goal. They did one better, as Jacob Harris got a 72-yard touchdown on 3rd & 13 to put Wisconsin up 24-20 with 1:13 remaining in the game.
Penn State’s win probability went from 89.4 percent on 2nd & 15 to just 8.4 percent one play later on the touchdown. And Wisconsin’s trusted defense got the final stop to help the Badgers pull off a shocker in Happy Valley that secured Fickell his biggest win at Wisconsin.
To put into perspective just how big the comeback was, the 17-point comeback was Wisconsin’s biggest since October 28th, 2006 against Illinois, nearly 20 years ago. They’ve had some comebacks in recent years, with their 14-point fourth-quarter comeback in 2023 with Braeden Locke being the most notable, but this one was one for the memory books, given the location, opponent, and stage of the program.
It wasn’t a night that Wisconsin would normally expect to win. It had three turnovers, nine penalties (including multiple on the final drive), a 4 of 15 mark on third downs, and a sub-50 percent completion rate from Colton Joseph. But a resilient group found a way to win, and in a way that the school hadn’t done in nearly 20 years.
