Some losses let you point to a handful of plays, acknowledge the opponent made more, and move on. Then there are losses where the final score doesn’t adequately capture how poorly a team performed.
Wisconsin’s 24-21 loss to Maryland belongs in the second category.
The Badgers managed 201 yards of total offense, committed three turnovers, and allowed Maryland to score 10 points in the final 2:11 to erase a seven-point deficit. The Terrapins were playing under an interim head coach and with a backup quarterback, yet somehow looked like the more composed, better-prepared team when the game was on the line.
“Well, we didn’t do anything well enough today to win, and that’s the hard part,” Luke Fickell told reporters. “You can’t go on the road in this league and think that you’re going to be able to play that way and win a football game... We’re a better football team than that, but we didn’t show it today.”
With that as the backdrop, let’s hand out some grades.
