In a wild evening of events, the Wisconsin Badgers outlasted the No. 23 Washington Huskies 13-10 at Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday, snapping a six-game losing streak and a 10-game Big Ten losing streak.
It’s the first signature win of head coach Luke Fickell’s career at Wisconsin, as he gets his first ranked win with the Badgers.
After weeks of disappointment and questions about Fickell’s future, the Badgers were led by their freshmen in a huge victory to improve to 3-6 on the season.
Here are three quick takeaways from Wisconsin’s 13-10 win over Washington.
Freshman linebackers shine again
It wasn’t pretty, but the Badgers got it done with a stout defensive performance.
That was led by true freshmen linebackers Cooper Catalano and Mason Posa, who shined as starters in a second straight game.
Catalano had a whopping 19 tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss. Posa wreaked havoc with 11 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and a huge pas breakup.
Both players are absolute hits in the 2025 class for Wisconsin and are cementing themselves as future stars.
That definitely was a big boost for Wisconsin’s defense on Saturday in a big win.
Who needs to throw the ball?
The Badgers found a way to win with their punter being the team’s top passer on Saturday.
Wisconsin was 6/18 passing for 48 yards. Punter Sean West was 1/1 for 24 yards. The rest combined for 24 yards on 7/17 passing. Carter Smith was 3/12 for 8 yards. Danny O’Neil was 0/2. And Hunter Simmons was 2/3 for 16 yards.
That’s an Iowa stat line if I’ve ever seen one, but Wisconsin didn’t need their passing game to win because…
Run Game has its best day
The Badgers were going to run the ball at all costs on Saturday. From the jump, it was clear that Wisconsin was going to use their quarterbacks’ dual-threat capabilities to its best ability.
Unfortunately, starting quarterback Danny O’Neil was hurt in the first quarter, being carted off after a 21-yard run with a leg injury. He had 30 rushing yards on three carries before leaving the game.
From there, it was the Carter Smith show, which came with its inefficiencies in the passing game, but with big help for the run game.
Smith had 47 rushing yards and a key rushing touchdown, while Gideon Ituka went for 73 yards on the ground. Overall, the Badgers had 157 rushing yards on 47 attempts, which helped them control the pace of the game when the offense needed to.
It wasn’t pretty, but the Badgers got the win. And they needed the run game in a big way to do so.
