GAME NOTES: Wisconsin 20, Army 14

QUOTES

• Head coach Paul Chryst’s thoughts on the win.

“Really proud of the way guys fought and battled and played, and it’s really good to get a win.” Chryst said. “A lot of guys contributed, I thought defensively we were really good in so many ways, it was a good plan, and guys knew it and executed it and came up with some good plays and a lot of guys made plays, certainly.”

• Chryst on Leo Chenal.

“What allows him to be successful, he’s obviously talented and loves the game, and I think Bo (Bob Bostad) does a great job of coaching him,” Chryst said. “I think him and Jack (Sanborn) play off each other too, and also what helps them be successful is the guys around them, I really believe that. Leo is a guy that every day, every day he’s at practice, every day he’s all in.”

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• Keeanu Benton on the defensive plan to combat the Army potent rush offense.

“Coach put it like this, they’re going to try to bleed you slow, and we just couldn’t let them do that,” Benton said. “We just gotta keep fresh bodies in, we didn’t have that many plays in the first half, but as long as we’re staying fresh and not letting them bleed us and staying aggressive and putting the pressure on them, we was going to be fine.”

• Jake Ferguson on Graham Mertz’s first touchdown run.

“I think we put that play in on Friday, that was pretty cool, good to see him run,” Ferguson said. “It was probably the slowest touchdown I have ever seen, but it was good, good to see him get his feet going a bit.”

• Ferguson on Leo Chenal.

“He’s nuts, crazy and really good,” Ferguson said. “It’s awesome watching him out there and he does stuff that he kind of did in high school, you go back and watch his high school film, and he’s breaking through the line and grabbing the quarterback with one arm and he did that tonight, it was just like oh my god... it’s just crazy to watch, he’s a monster out there.”

• Ferguson on Jack Sanborn’s fourth down conversion.

“I looked up and saw rushing leaders and it said “Sanborn, eight yards” and I was like oh jeez,” Ferguson said. “And that’s something we have been practicing and there were a couple of times earlier in the season where he would fumble it and we would give him a lot of crap for it, but he finally put together and that was a beast run.”

• Leo Chenal on his ability to be in be in the backfield quickly after the snap.

“We knew coming in, they had a certain snap count, they have a lot of rhythm to their offense, so it all works together, what they do,” Chenal said. “Basically there was the same thing every time and in the second half they adjusted.”

• Graham Mertz on if the offense is as efficient that it could be.

“No,” Mertz said. “I can’t put the ball on the ground, can’t fumble that, there’s some plays that we can clean up, but I am proud of how it ended, how we won, but there is always stuff to clean up.”

• Braelon Allen on him being able to make something out of nothing on some of his rushes.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the game kind of slowing down for me a little bit and just being comfortable with my in-game reps,” Allen said. “It’s something I have been working on, not running north and south and making some kind of move.”

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• Jack Sanborn on his fourth down conversion.

“It’s always in the game plan, it’s whether or not it actually gets called and it just so happened that we called it then and depending on what kind of look they came out in, we were going to run it,” Sanborn said. “All I knew is that I needed a yard, there was no vision on the play or anything, just run forward and I am averaging eight yeard per carry now, so not bad.”

Postgame notes, courtesy of the UW Athletic Department

TEAM NOTES

• Today’s captains: senior TE Jake Ferguson, senior CB Faion Hicks and senior ILB Jack Sanborn.
• Tonight’s attendance: 76,314
• Paul Chryst improved to 59-22 (.728) in his seventh season as Wisconsin’s head coach, ranking 4th on UW’s all-time wins list:

WINS AS WISCONSIN COACH, ALL-TIME

Coach (Years) / Wins

1. Barry Alvarez (1990-2005)* / 119

2. Bret Bielema (2006-12) / 68

3. Phil King (1896-1902, ‘05) / 65

4. Paul Chryst (2015-present) / 59

5. Milt Bruhn (1956-66) / 52

* Also served as coach in two bowl games (2012, 2014)

• Wisconsin improved to 3-1 all-time vs. service academies.
• The Badgers became the first team to win the time of possession category against Army this season, finishing with a margin of 30:47 to 29:13. The next closest Army opponent lost time of possession by a margin of 16:20 (Bowling Green State, 38:10 to 21:50).
• Army finished with just 87 yards passing, marking the third time a UW opponent has failed to reach 100 yards through the air this season.
• UW went 2-for-2 on fourth down and is now 8-for-11 on fourth down this season.
• The Badgers limited Army to 48 total yards (all rushing) on 20 plays in the first half, an average of just 2.4 yards per play.

INDIVIDUAL NOTES

• Sophomore QB Graham Mertz finished 8-for-15 for 112 yards and also ran for 14 yards on five carries with two touchdowns.
• Mertz scored the third and fourth rushing touchdowns of his career and first two of the season. Mertz first scored on a five-yard run in the second quarter and then one-yard run in the fourth quarter.

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• This is second time in his career that Mertz has scored two rushing touchdowns, also posting a pair of scores vs. Wake Forest in the 2020 Duke’s Mayo Bowl.
• Freshman RB Braelon Allen tallied 108 yards rushing on 16 carries, including a 33-yard touchdown in the second quarter.
• Allen has now posted back-to-back 100-yard games, becoming the first Badger true freshman to do that since Jonathan Taylor had 4-straight 100-yard games in 2017.
• Junior RB Chez Mellusi ran for 66 yards on 16 carries.
• Senior TE Jake Ferguson hauled in four catches for a season-high 58 yards.

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• Ferguson has caught at least one pass in each of his 40 career games, a school record that surpassed WR Lee Evans’ mark for consecutive games with a catch (38, 1999-2003) and extending the nation’s 3rd-longest active streak:

CONSEC. GAMES WITH RECEPTION, FBS (ACTIVE)

1. Justin Hall, Ball State *50

2. JD Spielman, TCU *40

3. Jake Ferguson, Wisconsin *40

4. Emeka Emezie, NC State (WR) 38

5. Jahan Dotson, Penn State (WR) 35

* Every game played in career

• Junior ILB Leo Chenal racked up a career-high 17 tackles, with 2.5 TFLs and 1.0 sack as well as a forced fumble. Chenal now has a team-high 42 tackles on the season.

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• Senior ILB Jack Sanborn finished with double-figure tackles for the second time in three games, tallying 12 stops.
• Senior S Scott Nelson tallied a career-high 11 tackles.
• Junior OLB C.J. Goetz made a career-high seven tackles, including 1.5 tackles for loss.
• Sophomore OLB Nick Herbig racked up seven tackles, including one TFL giving him 5.5 tackles for loss on the season.