The Wisconsin Badgers avoided disaster in their 2024 college football season opener against the Western Michigan Broncos. The Badgers were favored by around 24.5 points entering the contest last Friday at Camp Randall Stadium, but they only won by 14 points, 28-14.
Still, a win is a win, and there is still time for Wisconsin to get things together and put a much better effort on the field.
The Badgers will have another seemingly inferior opponent this coming weekend with the FCS program South Dakota Coyotes coming to Madison. And this time around, Badgers head coach Luke Fickell wants his team to further capitalize on the home-field advantage, particularly the energy coming from the crowd, which he felt Wisconsin failed to maximize in the Western Michigan game.
Via Tony Liebert of Sports Illustrated:
“What we didn’t do a good enough job of, was getting the home-field advantage into play, that’s on us,” Fickell admitted. “If there is one thing that really kind of stands out to me, that we need to do a better job of, is taking advantage of what we got and that atmosphere that we weren’t able to really get rolling.”
South Dakota will enter this weekend’s game coming off a 45-3 win over the Northern State Wolves on August 29.
Wisconsin Badgers survive Western Michigan in opener
Against the Broncos, Badgers quarterback Tyler Van Dyke passed for 192 yards on just 21-of-36 completions, while Chez Mellusi and Tawee Walker produced 74 and 66 rushing yards, respectively, while scoring a touchdown each.
The Badgers only had a three-point lead at the half but scored just three points in the third quarter before outscoring Western Michigan in the final period, 15-7. Overall, Wisconsin produced 388 total yards while allowing 261 to Western Michigan.
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