Badger beatdown

Published 11:53 pm Saturday, September 1, 2007

MADISON, Wisc. – Alex Brink may have said it best.

“Against the No. 7 team in the nation,” said Washington State’s senior quarterback, obviously drained after the Cougars 42-21 loss at Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday, “you have to avoid lulls like that.”

The lull Brink was referring to started late in the first quarter and extended until after halftime. And during WSU’s 30-minute offensive hiatus, the Badgers showed why they are ranked so high, scoring 35 of the final 42 points to run away from the Cougars.

The turning point came early in the second quarter.

Following a Cougars stop, Brink guided the Cougars from their own 12 to the 47. But on a third-and-15, Brink overthrew wide receiver Brandon Gibson, who had gotten open over the middle.

“We had that post to Brandon that was just a little off, a foot too long or the wind caught it, whatever,” Brink said. “I think when we watch this film we’re going to like some of the things we did, but in the end, offensively, I think we beat ourselves a little bit. Look at the post to Brandon, I think that’s a pretty good indication.”

Gibson finished with six catches for 82 yards despite being a gametime decision due to a sore knee.

After a Darryl Blunt punt pinned Wisconsin at its own 15, Badgers quarterback Tyler Donovan led an 85-yard drive, keyed by a 43-yard completion to senior wide receiver Luke Swan, and capped by Garrett Graham’s 11-yard touchdown catch to put Wisconsin ahead for good.

The Wisconsin score came on a third-down play, which the Cougars had trouble stopping all day. The Badgers converted 11 of 15 third-down tries, including the first four on passes of more than 10 yards.

“We couldn’t get off the field on third downs to save our lives,” said senior safety Husain Abdullah. “If we had gotten a couple of third-down stops early, we could have changed things in a hurry.”

With 45 seconds left in the first half Wisconsin got the ball back at its 47 helped by a WSU hold on a punt return. It was enough time for another score.

Donovan, who completed 19 of 29 passes for 284 yards, hit Swan, who got behind freshman cornerback Chima Nwachukwu, for a 38-yard score with 30 seconds remaining.

“We had some young kids on defense and made some mistakes, some mental errors,” WSU head coach Bill Doba said. “They found our freshman corner early and got a couple scores off him. But he’ll get better and the good thing is, I think we’ll get better.”

Washington State tried to rally early in the third quarter after a special-teams miscue by Wisconsin. The Badgers’ Ken DeBauche hit a short punt, then was flagged for illegally batting the ball forward, giving the ball to Washington State at the Wisconsin 42.

Brink drove the Cougars deep into Badgers territory, then found wide receiver Brandon Gibson on a 7-yard slant pattern for a touchdown, cutting the Badgers’ lead to 28-21.

Donovan answered by leading the Badgers on another extended drive that ended with last year’s Big Ten freshman of the year, P.J. Hill, scoring his second touchdown.

Hill carried 21 times for 84 yards and two touchdowns, but he nearly cost the Badgers a chance to put the game out of reach.

Stuck at midfield and trailing by two touchdowns early in the fourth quarter, Washington State tried a fake punt. But punter Darryl Blunt’s lazy lob pass was intercepted by Wisconsin’s Aaron Henry.

“The snap was high, so it threw off the timing,” Blunt said. “I had no time to look, I just had to get rid of it.”

The Badgers drove deep into Cougars territory, where Hill fumbled on first-and-goal but was able to recover. Donovan scored on a quarterback sneak on second-and-goal, allowing the Badgers to take a 42-21 lead.

The Cougars scored on their first two possessions for the first time in two years.

Blunt came in to punt on the first possession. Linebacker Kendrick Dunn, one of the guards in the Cougs’ new punt formation, allowed Kirk DeCremer a free lane up the middle and DeCremer took Blunt’s punt off his foot. But the ball bounced up to the Cougar punter and he took off.

Eleven yards later, WSU had a first down.

Brink took advantage, finding Gibson free down the sideline for 39 yards to the Badger 9. Dwight Tardy took the next snap around left end and into the end zone, part of a 96-yard day for the sophomore.

“They tried to help us but we just didn’t take advantage of it often enough,” Doba said. “They dropped a couple of punts they were trying to field and we had a chance to get another fumble there late in the fourth quarter, but by that time the game was out of reach.”

Brink sees some parallels to last year, when the Cougars opened with a 40-14 loss to Auburn then reeled off six wins in the next eight games.

“We played even better than at Auburn, at least offensively,” he said.

“We are going to take some good things from this like we did at Auburn.

We played a great football team and we hung with them for a long time, but that’s not enough for us.

“We know we were as good as that team we were playing, and we could have won that game. We leave with a real bad taste in our mouth knowing that.”

Associated Press writer Chris Jenkins contributed to this story