Northwestern Upsets No. 7 Wisconsin

The other shoe finally fell on the Wisconsin Badgers.

The Badgers, who had opened their suspension-tinged season with three close calls, had their 11-game winning streak halted and their hopes of their first national championship squelched by a 47-44 overtime loss to Northwestern on Saturday.

Damien Anderson scooted around left end and darted into the end zone on a 12-yard run in the second overtime to give the Wildcats the upset victory.

Zak Kustok’s nine-yard scramble on third-and-six set up the winning score.

Moments earlier, the Badgers, 3-1 overall and 0-1 in the Big Ten, had taken a 44-41 lead on Vitaly Pisetsky’s 39-yard field goal.

Northwestern (3-1, 1-0), which had never scored this many points against Wisconsin, got 174 yards in 21 carries from Anderson, who also scored on a 69-yard run midway through the fourth quarter.

That started a stretch in which 51 points were scored.

“We weren’t just going to be happy going into overtime with Wisconsin,” Kustok said. “We wanted to beat them.”

The Badgers, who had never scored this many points and lost, saw an unranked opponent ruin their season for the second straight year. Last season, it was a stumble at Cincinnati that spoiled it.

This time, the Wildcats spoiled the Badgers’ season just as Wisconsin was about to emerge from NCAA suspensions over a discount shoe scandal.

The Badgers completed their NCAA-mandated suspensions by sitting out six players against the Wildcats, including No. 1 receiver Chris Chambers and All-American cornerback Jamar Fletcher. They were among 26 players who got caught receiving unadvertised discounts at a shoe store.

It looked as though Wisconsin would make it through the punishment unbeaten when Pisetsky’s 47-yard field goal gave the Badgers a 34-31 lead with 51 seconds left in regulation.

But just as Cincinnati did a week earlier, Northwestern quickly moved downfield for a score-tying field goal as time expired--a 46-yarder by Tim Long.

“I was disappointed that for the second week in a row, we let a team march 50 yards in less than a minute with no timeouts and kick a field goal to take it to overtime,” Badger Coach Barry Alvarez said.

Both teams scored touchdowns in the first overtime, Northwestern on a 15-yard pass from Kustok to Teddy Johnson, and Wisconsin on a five-yard pass from Brooks Bollinger to Nick Davis.

Wisconsin tailback Michael Bennett returned from his one-game suspension and gained a career-high 293 yards in 48 carries. But the ball jammed into his rib cage on a nine-yard run, and he went out with the score tied at 31-31 and the Badgers on the Northwestern 29 with a minute left.

With Bennett out, the Wildcats stuffed his backup, Eddie Faulkner, and Bollinger on consecutive second-and-one plays and the Badgers settled for Pisetsky’s 47-yard field goal with 51 seconds left.

Davis, the Badgers’ best big-play threat, returned from his three-week suspension and showed plenty of rust, fumbling two punts and dropping a touchdown pass.