What did Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell have to say following loss to Penn State?

Penn State knew they were in for a tough battle Saturday night at Wisconsin, but as they’ve done all season so far, the Nittany Lions dug deep in the second half to pull out a 28-13 win and stay undefeated ahead of a massive showdown against Ohio State next weekend.

Coming into the game, the Badgers had been playing their best football of the season offensively, largely because of the success they were having on first down. That wasn’t the case against Penn State, as Wisconsin managed just 126 yards on 27 first downs (11 drives total, plus 16 gained). On top of that, when you also consider that 61 of those yards came on just two plays, plus the fact that PSU held the Badgers to 0 or negative yards on 11 of those 27 plays, it played a major role in the outcome.

“Obviously, we knew that they were going to make it difficult, as aggressive as they are, as athletic as they are,” said Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell. “But that probably [comes down to] first down, our ability to stay on track, to give the offense and Braedyn [Locke] a chance. [That’s] probably where they did the best job. We knew we wanted to stay out of third and long situations, but it really comes down to winning on first down and I think that’s where we struggled as much as anything.”

Report Card: Grading out Penn State’s 28-13 win over Wisconsin

Despite those struggles, Wisconsin still led Penn State 10-7 at halftime. An injury to quarterback Drew Allar only complicated things for the Nittany Lions. However, as so many of the nation’s top programs often do, Penn State got a big play when it needed it most midway through the third quarter when safety Jaylen Reed intercepted Locke and took it back for a score.

“That’s one that probably hurt as much as anything,” Fickell said. “I can’t say it took the crowd out of the game or anything like that. It’s just one of those situations where it puts a little bit more pressure back on the defense to understand that we’re going to have to make up somehow, some way for this…Those are the kinds of things right there where we need to find ways. We’ve been pretty good the past few weeks and poised enough to handle some of those situations, but that’s one that’s really difficult to overcome.”

Allar’s injury will be a major talking point for Penn State fans and media this week, but backup quarterback Beau Pribula more than held his own in the second half. In addition to leading two scoring drives in the fourth quarter, Pribula completed his final nine pass attempts to finish 11 for 13 with 98 yards passing and a score.

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“They did a really good job with him in the second half and caused us some issues,” Fickell said when asked about Pribula. “I [wouldn’t] say we weren’t prepared for [Pribula]. As much as they make you prepare for so many things, when he actually goes into the game, it becomes a little bit of a different game. It caused us some issues. So, two-fold: give them credit for having a plan for when he is in there, and I don’t think we did a good enough job at making sure we understood what he was going to do. But he also threw the football pretty darn well, too. He made some plays in the second half that were really, really big.”

Penn State now turns its attention to a top-five showdown with Ohio State next week at Beaver Stadium while Wisconsin heads to Iowa. Before he wrapped up his press conference, Fickell went out of his way to make it clear that the Nittany Lions are among the best in the conference. That’s especially true on defense.

“That’s a team right there that we just got done playing that, probably, if things aren’t going well, the quarterback twists his knee, they could probably hang their hat on the defense and probably get by for a bit. They’re that talented, I think,” Fickell said.