Wisconsin football report card from 13-10 win over No. 23 Washington
Handing out grades for the Wisconsin Badgers offense, defense, and special teams from the 13-10 win over No. 23 Washington in Week 11.
For the first time in a long time, the University of Wisconsin football team didn’t find a new way to lose a game. It found a way to win one.
Inside a chilly, snow-filled Camp Randall Stadium, the Badgers (3–6, 1–5 Big Ten) out-toughed, out-lasted, and out-executed No. 23 Washington, snapping a 10-game skid against ranked opponents and delivering Luke Fickell the signature win he’d been missing since arriving in Madison.
The same week that Athletic Director Chris McIntosh publicly committed to keeping his embattled head coach for 2026, Wisconsin responded with its most complete, connected, and resilient performance of the entire season, gutting out a 13–10 victory that felt like a long-overdue exhale.
This wasn’t pretty. Wisconsin threw for 48 yards, lost another starting quarterback to injury, and needed its punter to deliver the longest completion of the night, but “complementary football” finally showed up. The defense dominated the line of scrimmage. True freshmen Cooper Catalano and Mason Posa played like grizzled veterans, and Wisconsin forced two turnovers, blocked a field goal, and held Washington to 251 total yards.
Quarterback Carter Smith, playing in his first career game, provided a jolt with his legs, special teams delivered the moment of the night on a fake punt, and the Badgers played their cleanest situational game in a while.
Context matters: Wisconsin was drowning in injuries, on a six-game losing streak, and fighting like hell to keep this football team together. But for the first time this season, the Badgers didn’t blink. They corrected their mistakes, punched back after the blocked punt, and won every high-leverage snap that would typically bury them. It won’t change the trajectory on paper, but in the moment, it finally felt like this team could breathe again.
A battered roster stood tall against a ranked foe, kept fighting, and earned the outcome that kept slipping through its fingers.
“It feels really good, let’s just say that,” Fickell said. “In this game, you don’t always get what you think you deserve. These guys deserve something because they continue to battle and they continue to fight. Sometimes you’ve got to go earn it, and they did an incredible job of earning it tonight. It was great to have a crowd that made a difference. It was really great to see, and I appreciate them and I thank them for that.”
With that as the backdrop, let’s hand out some grades.
Offense: D+
Wisconsin won a football game despite fielding an offense that, for long stretches, looked almost identical to the unit that buried them during the six-game losing streak.
Wisconsin finished with just 205 total yards, and 157 of them came on the ground, which is a reflection of both the weather and the reality of what this offense currently is. The passing game never found any form of real traction, producing only 48 yards, half of which came from punter Sean West on a fake punt. The three quarterbacks who touched the field combined to go 5-of-17 for 24 yards, reinforcing a hard truth: at this stage, even baseline passing competence feels aspirational for this team.
The Badgers converted only 2-of-14 third downs, averaged 3.2 yards per play, and operated inside a play sheet that shrinks by the week. And yet, they avoided the one mistake that could have flipped the game. They didn’t turn the ball over. They played slow, conservative, and predictable in many ways, but they protected the ball, leaned on the run game, and let the defense and special teams tilt the field. But it got the job done.
According to Game on Paper, the advanced numbers paint the same picture: –0.24 EPA per play (10th percentile), –0.32 EPA per dropback (15th percentile), and –0.19 EPA per rush (19th percentile). Wisconsin averaged just 4.92 plays per drive and 16.31 yards per drive, further underscoring how little sustained offense they actually generated. This was survival football, held together by field position, toughness, and the complete refusal to give the game away. This unit played with passion.
The game began with the hope that sophomore quarterback Danny O’Neil, back in the lineup after getting benched, would stabilize things. Before the game, Fickell acknowledged O’Neil was “still a bit dinged up,” but added that “I feel like he’s what we need,” even as whispers persisted that the San Diego State transfer had been battling an Achilles issue.
But that optimism evaporated almost immediately. On just the eighth offensive snap, O’Neil ripped off a 21-yard keeper, stepped awkwardly at the end of the run, and immediately grabbed at his lower leg. Within minutes, medical staff brought out the cart, and a towel covered his face as he was taken off the field. He was immediately ruled out of the game, and Wisconsin’s wretched injury luck at quarterback continued.
It also begs the question: Is this the second time this season Wisconsin’s staff has grossly mismanaged an injury that ultimately led to something more significant, much like the Billy Edwards Jr. situation against Maryland? Time will tell, but the optics and the pattern are hard to ignore.
“Danny took most of the reps the last two weeks… We had just started getting Carter [Smith] reps last week,” Fickell said. “During the bye week, we said, ‘Hey, we have to give him an opportunity because we don’t know what it’s going to look like,’ and we’ve had guys dinged up. We’re trying to figure out, as you grow, what you focus yourself around in building offensively. For a bunch of these weeks, we’d been hoping and expecting to get Billy back, so you kept pushing the offense in that direction.
“And I don’t know that that’s the case. So we tried to shift.”
From there, true freshman Carter Smith took over and provided exactly one thing: juice. His stat line wasn’t pretty: 3-of-12 passing for eight yards, but his impact was real. His legs created structure for Jeff Grimes’ option-leaning game plan, and his burst changed the math for Washington’s front seven. Smith carried 15 times for 47 yards, including a 2-yard touchdown that tied the game early in the third quarter and swung momentum to a sideline that desperately needed something to believe in.
“He gave us a chance. He gave us hope,” Fickell said. “I think that’s probably the biggest thing. I just think about the first time he walked out there on the field... the reaction of the crowd, a little bit of energy, those things are contagious. We all know he wasn’t perfect, and we all know there are some things that you may be a little bit more limited to, but he brought you some fire. He brought you some spark. He brought you some hope. And most importantly for me, he took care of the football.”
Structurally, Grimes leaned all the way into the run: plenty of designed QB keepers, and read-option looks to complement the ground game. It worked just well enough to keep the offense on schedule, thanks in large part to having a few short fields and the defense repeatedly flipping field position. Wisconsin didn’t have to produce full field drives, and that kept the playbook from collapsing into its typical three-and-out purgatory.
The run game was functional: 157 rushing yards, paced by Smith, and Gideon Ituka’s 19 carries for 73 yards in his first collegiate start.
Before exiting, O’Neil added 30 yards of his own, highlighted by the 21-yard keeper that ultimately ended his night. Wisconsin couldn’t generate explosives, couldn’t consistently block the perimeter, and absolutely couldn’t throw the ball, but for once, those deficiencies didn’t sink them.
The most important offensive play of the game didn’t even come from the offense. Ironically enough, it came on Sean West’s 24-yard strike on a fake punt, which produced more passing yards than the Badgers’ trio of signal callers had accumulated combined. That tells the entire story.
This was still a limited offense, hamstrung by injuries, inexperience, and schematic compromises. But it didn’t implode. It stayed on schedule, avoided turnovers, capitalized on the gifts provided by the defense, and found the end zone when it absolutely had to. Given how low the bar is and how consistently this group has failed to meet even that, the modest functionality on the ground nudges this grade up more than it should.
I’ll give the Badgers offense a D+, grading on a curve. Still, the reality remains: Wisconsin will not survive many Saturdays playing this way. A gritty win doesn’t change the underlying structural issues. Until the passing game resembles something more than a placeholder, the offense will remain the weakest link — and one that’s tough to overcome.
Defense: A-
If the Oregon game was the signal, the Washington game was the confirmation: Wisconsin’s defense hasn’t just held strong this season — it has cranked the intensity up another level to close out the season.
Against one of the Big Ten’s most dynamic quarterbacks in Demond Williams and a system built on tempo, the Badgers delivered their most complete performance of the year. They held Washington to 251 total yards on an impressive 3.7 yards per play, generated 34 pressures, 4.0 sacks, produced 9.0 tackles for loss, and forced two takeaways.
The advanced metrics underline how dominant this effort truly was.
According to GameOnPaper, Wisconsin held Washington’s offense to –0.22 EPA per play (12th percentile), –0.37 EPA per dropback (11th percentile), and –0.06 EPA per rush (39th percentile). Across 12 drives, the Huskies averaged just 5.58 plays per possession and 23.25 yards per drive, a testament to how often Wisconsin’s defense got off the field.
“What can you say about the defense? I mean, that’s a good offense,” Fickell said. “That quarterback [Demond Williams Jr.] has been dynamic, and he has made them who they are this entire year. And our guys did a great job out there tonight. They did a great job of keeping him under wraps as far as running the football, but also not giving him the open windows and the clear windows. They were disciplined in what they did.”
From the first play of the game, the Badgers’ defensive tone matched what we saw against Oregon: fast, physical, disciplined, and confident. Wisconsin won the line of scrimmage on both early downs and pressure downs, compressing windows for Williams, forcing him into checkdowns, and eventually taking away his ability to function as a passer.
A massive part of that was the linebacker tandem of Cooper Catalano and Mason Posa, who now look like the engine of this defense.
Catalano posted a staggering 19 total tackles (12 solo), the most by a Wisconsin freshman since T.J. Edwards in 2015. The Germantown product also had 1.5 tackles for loss and a pressure. He consistently erased plays that earlier in the season turned into explosives, diagnosing runs instantly and cleaning up every loose edge that Washington tried to exploit.
Posa was just as, if not more, impactful. He finished with 11 tackles, a dominant 2.5 sacks, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery, and an eye-popping seven quarterback pressures. He delivered the play of the night with his strip-sack and recovery that set up Wisconsin’s tying touchdown.
Then, Posa sealed the win with a fourth-down sack on Washington’s final possession. In every high-leverage snap, he was the one dictating terms.
Together, their instincts, speed, and fearlessness didn’t just elevate Wisconsin’s defense. They changed the way the entire unit functions. The freshmen weren’t just part of the plan; they were the engine of it.
“That’s pretty impressive. They’re just doing a great job,” Fickell said. “They’re playing the game the way the game’s supposed to be played. They bring that energy. They have a communication side to them, too.
“There are some natural things, I don’t want to say alpha, but some natural things you don’t teach. Sometimes you don’t even know what you have until you get them out there. They’ve done nothing but continue to step up. The last play was Posa making the play. I’m not sure how fast he really is, but when the ball’s snapped, I think he plays a little bit faster.”
Up front, Wisconsin’s defensive line and outside linebackers dictated the line of scrimmage from start to finish. LSU transfer Jay’Viar Suggs consistently pushed the pocket from the interior, finishing with five pressures and forcing Washington’s offense off its spots. Ben Barten anchored the middle with physical gap control, disrupted protections throughout the night, and delivered the fourth-quarter field-goal block that preserved Wisconsin’s lead.
“There’s nobody that’s been more consistent,” Fickell said of Barten. “I think I said earlier in the week, you’re not going to see things like that as much in college football — a guy in his sixth year who tells me his story about not being able to play a lick his first couple years here, changing positions from offense to defense, which doesn’t normally happen.
“He says it: ‘I was a really bad football player.’ And to see where he was last year and where he is this year… he’s got a chance to continue to play this game of football. He gives us everything he’s got every single day, and I don’t know where we’d be without him. He’s not a real vocal guy sometimes, but he’s a guy that people listen to and look to.”
On the edges, the Badgers were active: Mason Reiger finished with four tackles, a half-sack, and an impressive eight pressures, while Sebastian Cheeks added six pressures, two tackles for loss, and a sack, repeatedly closing down escape lanes.
In the secondary, Ricardo Hallman had a momentum-saving end-zone interception in the first half, running the route for Washington’s wideout and taking points off the board in a game where every inch mattered.
Scheme-wise, Mike Tressel mixed simulated pressure, delayed stunts, and QB contain to force Williams into lateral movement rather than downhill acceleration. Washington went 6-of-19 on third and fourth down, routinely stuck in third-and-long thanks to early-down front-seven wins.
Perhaps just as importantly, the defense shook off their own adversity. After a blocked punt gifted Washington the ball at the 1-yard line, the Badgers didn’t crumble. They allowed the touchdown, reset, and took control of the game from there. Wisconsin teams of the past two seasons let that moment snowball ten times out of ten. This one didn’t.
The Badgers gave up one big QB run, had occasional trouble setting edges early, and still need cleaner tackling (16 missed tackles, per PFF), but those are footnotes compared to the dominant body of work. This was a high-level defensive effort, the kind of performance that inspires hope that, with continued development and the right additions through the transfer portal, they can be a much-improved unit in 2026.
Given the opponent, the weather, the pressure, and the need to carry a struggling offense, this was an A- showing in every way that matters.
Special Teams: B
Special teams nearly swung this game in both directions, making this one of their more complex evaluations of the season.
The glaring mistake, a first-half blocked punt that gave Washington the ball at the Badgers’ 1-yard line, was the kind of error Wisconsin hasn’t survived in recent years. It immediately produced the Huskies’ only offensive touchdown of the day and momentarily threatened to bury Wisconsin in the familiar pattern of letting one mistake lead to many more.
But what happened next flipped the script.
Wisconsin went from surrendering a game-changing play… to creating them.
The most important snap of the night was undeniably Sean West’s 24-yard completion to fullback Jackson Acker on a fake punt. This perfectly timed, perfectly executed call by the coaching staff gave Wisconsin its first legitimate chunk play of the game. That single throw produced more passing yards than the offense had generated all game and injected life into a sideline and stadium that needed it. Momentum was on their side.
“The blocked punt is uncalled for. That can’t happen,” Fickell said. “You don’t normally win football games when you get punts blocked. So maybe we had to balance it out with a fake punt to try to even that thing out a little bit. You know, there was a missed field goal early on. There were a lot of things to flinch at tonight. Whether it’s Danny going down, getting a punt blocked, giving the ball on the one-yard line, or missing a field goal.
“And give our guys credit: they did not flinch. They kept fighting. They kept playing. And that’s what you’ve got to be most proud of.”
The punting battery of West and Atticus Bertrams again played a significant role in the field-position avalanche that powered Wisconsin’s second-half surge. West was credited with punting three times for 137 yards — a 45.7-yard average, with a long of 54 and one inside the 20 — consistently flipping the field when Wisconsin’s offense stalled. Bertrams was just as impactful in the short-field game. He punted twice for 75 yards, averaging 37.5 per kick with a long of 43, and both of his punts landed inside the 20.
Bertrams also saved what could have been a disastrous sequence, dropping a snap yet still getting off a clean punt that Washington fielded at the four-yard line, flipping leverage entirely. Several of his placements pinned the Huskies deep and were a massive reason the Badgers controlled the fourth quarter without asking too much of their offense.
Then there was the biggest special teams swing of the fourth quarter: Barten’s block of a 50-yard field goal attempt with the Badgers clinging to a 13–10 lead. It was clean, violent, and decisive, exactly the kind of play Wisconsin hasn’t made in tight games for the better part of two seasons.
Kicker Nathanial Vakos went 2-for-3, hitting from 42 and 32 to give Wisconsin both the early lead and the decisive lead. His miss from 48 on the opening drive left potential points on the table, but considering the conditions and the pressure, his night was steadier than it was shaky.
Coverage units held up, no back-breaking returns were allowed, and execution, outside of the terrible blocked punt, was crisp across the board. The negative matters, but the positive swings mattered more. For once, special teams helped win Wisconsin a football game, and that’s why this week’s grade lands at a B.
Next up: at Indiana
For the first time in over a year, Wisconsin heads into a game week carrying something other than frustration, resignation, or questions about when the bottom might finally give way.
The Badgers snapped an 11-game Big Ten losing streak, beat a ranked opponent for the first time since 2021, and did it with a depleted roster, a patchwork offense, and a true freshman quarterback making his collegiate debut under center. It wasn’t clean, it wasn’t pretty, and it certainly wasn’t balanced, but it was a win, the kind this program desperately needed to prove the fight still remains in that locker room.
The victory over Washington doesn’t erase the damage of the past two seasons. One gut-check win doesn’t mean the offense is fixed, that the quarterback situation is solved, or that the talent deficiencies magically disappeared. But it does confirm something that had been missing for months: the ability to take a punch, recover, and go win a football game in the fourth quarter. Wisconsin finally did that. The defense rose to the occasion, special teams delivered multiple big plays, and the offense, despite all of its pronounced limitations, refused to hand the game away.
“That’s the thing you work so hard for,” Fickell said in regard to the crowd storming the field. “And I know for our fans, they want nothing more than what we want. They might not have to work every single day, but they work in their own ways, and to see their excitement too is pretty special.”
Now comes a different kind of test.
Next Saturday, the Badgers travel to Bloomington to face No. 2 Indiana (10-0) at 11 a.m. CT on BTN, a matchup that will put their newfound confidence under a microscope. Indiana’s speed and physicality are a step above what Wisconsin just saw from Washington. The Hoosiers are playing like a title contender, and the margin for error on the road will be razor-thin, especially for an offense still struggling to find its identity.
The question now becomes sustainability. Can Wisconsin replicate the defensive intensity, the discipline, and the field-position jostling that carried them to the finish line? Can Carter Smith provide enough stability at quarterback, enough spark, to keep the offense functional in a far more hostile environment? And can this team, finally playing with some belief again, take a step forward instead of sliding back into old habits?
One win doesn’t change the season, far from it. But it changes the temperature. It changes the tone. And for a Wisconsin Badgers team that has worn more scars than smiles over the past few seasons, it gives them something real, not hypothetical, not just moral victories, to build off.
No one expects Wisconsin to upset Indiana on the road, but the way the Badgers continue to execute, the way they strain, and the way they respond to adversity will tell us whether Saturday’s spark can travel. They showed signs of life. Now we find out what they can do with it.
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