Wisconsin entered Michigan Stadium having not played a down in 21 days, due to a COVID shutdown. The Badgers found the perfect remedy in traveling to Ann Arbor.
Take two boatloads of points and call it a bye week in the morning.
The Badgers overwhelmed the Wolverines, 49-11, at The Big House, before an estimated crowd of 250 — more fans than yards gained by the home team.
Wisconsin freshman quarterback Graham Mertz went 12-of-22 passing for 127 yards and two touchdowns in leading the rout. It wasn’t the 95 percent completion rate he posted in the Badgers’ long-ago opener, but it was more than enough against the reeling, 1-3 Wolverines.
The visitors piled on 341 rushing yards and five touchdowns in the relentless ground game, with four Badgers backs gaining between 65 and 87 yards.
Michigan answered with an anemic offensive output — 219 yards, interceptions on its first two possessions and fewer points than the Badgers scored in the opening nine minutes of the game.
Redshirt sophomore quarterback Joe Milton suffered his worst outing of the season, finishing 9 of 19 for 98 yards, no touchdowns and two pickoffs. Redshirt freshman Cade McNamara came on to complete 4 of 7 throws for 74 yards and Michigan’s only touchdown.
The Wolverines rushed for a grand total of 47 yards, making it 60 yards combined the past two weeks.
Wisconsin moved to 2-0, without a single symptom of a layoff.
Michigan, meanwhile, could use an extended recovery break.
“We were thoroughly beaten in every phase,” head coach Jim Harbaugh said. “We didn’t really do anything well. We did not play good, did not coach good. We’re not in a good place with the execution, not in a good place in the adjusting, and schematically.
“We’re not in a good place as a football team, and that falls on me … everybody’s got to do better, and I’m in the front of the line in accountability.”
Wisconsin opened its feast with a touchdown on a platter. On U-M’s first offensive snap, Milton rolled right and hit fifth-year senior tight end Nick Eubanks in the numbers. But the ball squirted up and into the hands of Badgers safety Scott Nelson at the Michigan 33.
A 30-yard run on an end-around by Chimere Dike put the ball at the doorstep of Michigan’s end zone. The Badgers’ offensive line then kicked in the door, allowing running back Nakia Watson to crash in from two yards out. Just 5:32 into the game, Wisconsin led, 7-0.
On Michigan’s second possession, a heavily pressured Milton fired a throw right into the midsection of Badgers linebacker Leo Chenal. Chenal returned the ball 31 yards to the Michigan 14, and four plays later, Mertz floated a one-yard TD toss to wide-open fullback Mason Stokke.
The Badgers grabbed complete control, 14-0 at the 6:08 mark, and their virus woes — like the Wolverines — appeared far behind them.
It quickly got worse.
Michigan finished the first quarter with more interceptions than yards gained in the opening 15 minutes — 2-1. Wisconsin turned that ineffectiveness into more points on the opening play of the second quarter. Stokke finished off a nine-play, 60-yard drive with a one-yard TD plunge, making it 21-0 six seconds into the period.
The Badgers took it 74 yards in six plays the next time they touched the ball. Watson’s 10-yard burst up the middle made it 28-0 at the 10:07 mark, after Mertz unloaded a 19-yard toss on a crossing pattern to Dike and U-M got flagged for pass interference.
That made it 28-0 at the half, the Badgers looking invincible. Even a 74-yard Michigan drive ended in misery, Milton getting stonewalled on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line.
The Wolverines did break through with fifth-year senior Quinn Nordin’s 46-yard field goal to open the second half. At 28-3, Michigan tried to take the fight to the Badgers.
That lasted only as long as it took Wisconsin to answer with a 44-yard march in five plays, Mertz tossing a 13-yard TD to a leaping, 6-5 tight end Jake Ferguson. At 35-3 with 4:45 left in the third quarter, the only reason fans weren’t filing out was that there weren’t any there — except relatives.
Had they left, they’d have missed an eye-opening effort by McNamara, who took U-M 75 yards in four plays at the end of the third quarter. He fired a 23-yard pass to junior wideout Ronnie Bell, a 28-yarder to Eubanks and a 23-yard TD toss to sophomore wideout Mike Sainristil.
He then tossed a perfect fade to sophomore receiver Giles Jackson for the two-point conversion. At 35-11, nobody was expecting a miracle.
But McNamara’s effort injected a little life into a flat-lining offense.
Asked if the quarterback position is going to get reexamined this week, Harbaugh responded: “We’re going to evaluate all things. Everything that we’re doing.”
Wisconsin then pounded out a 14-play, 75-yard touchdown drive, burning 8:24 off the clock. Paul Chryst’s team appeared to be delivering a reminder about who owned the moment, running the football on 11 of the 14 snaps in the drive.
The Badgers covered 72 yards in only three plays when next they touched the football. Fullback John Chenal broke off a 43-yard run in the pouring rain setting in at Michigan Stadium, and running back Jalen Berger then dashed in 23 yards for the touchdown.
The clock read 7:34 in the fourth, the only mystery remaining involving whether or not the Badgers would hit half a hundred.
They didn’t, because they opted instead to run out the clock. They’d more than proven their point, while Michigan found itself left pointing to more hopeful times.
“It sucks,” fifth-year senior defensive lineman and captain Carlo Kemp said. “You work so hard throughout the entire week. You have a good week in practice. What’s happening in practice is not translating into the game.
“We do a lot of very good things, and we’ve got a lot of very good players. It’s just getting it together and putting it together in the games.”
On a rainy Saturday night in Michigan Stadium, that appeared farther away than ever.
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