By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – In early August, I picked the Iowa football team to beat Wisconsin, and by Saturday’s unusually late kickoff, I felt even more confident about that prediction.

My thinking was that the circumstances couldn’t be any better for Iowa, considering Wisconsin had to replace seven starters and two key contributors on defense from last season, was missing star receiver Quintez Cephus and was coming off a 24-21 loss to Brigham Young University in which the Badgers looked uncharacteristically sloppy and listless at times.

Home-field advantage also was taken into consideration, although, the Badgers entered Saturday’s Big Ten opener having won four games in a row at Kinnick Stadium.

But that was before the north end zone renovation had started, and before the “Wave” had become what some call the greatest new tradition in sports.

There were a lot of obstacles for the Badgers to overcome on Saturday, including a pretty good opponent and one of the best game-day atmospheres in college football, and yet, they found a way to beat Iowa again.

Alex Hornibrook and his Badger teammates made just enough plays, and Iowa made just enough mistakes for Wisconsin to escape from Kinnick Stadium with a 28-17 victory.

The Badgers marched 88 yards on 10 plays for the game-winning touchdown, which came on a 17-yard pass from Hornibrook to A.J. Taylor with 57 seconds left to play. Taylor broke free after Iowa linebacker Nick Niemann slipped and fell while trying to cover the speedy Badger receiver.

Wisconsin linebacker T.J Edwards then intercepted a deflected pass that was thrown by Iowa quarterback Nate Stanley and the Badgers scored another meaningless touchdown on a 33-yard run by fullback Alec Ingold, securing their fifth victory in a row at Kinnick Stadium and their sixth win in the last seven games against Iowa.

“They played clean football tonight, and they played good football,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said of Wisconsin. “Typically, they’re pretty good about being smart with the ball and securing the ball. They do play good field position football, and that’s where our turnovers really cost us.”

Iowa had three turnovers that resulted in two Wisconsin touchdowns.

But the Hawkeyes still led 17-14 late in the fourth quarter and had a chance to stop the Badgers on offense, but Iowa's heralded defense failed to respond under immense pressure.

“We wanted to take away the run and we did a pretty good job on that,” said Iowa defensive back Amani Hooker. “We wanted Hornibrook to have to make plays and he made plays.”

Hooker was right about Hornibrook, who improved his record to 23-4 as a starter. But Hooker’s assessment of Iowa’s rush defense was a little misleading, considering Wisconsin had 210 rushing yards.

Hornibrook completed all five of his pass attempts on the game-winning touchdown drive in the fourth quarter, including one to Kendrick Pryor that gained 28 yards and gave the Badgers a first down at the Iowa 42-yard line.

“We have a lot of things we can improve on,” said Iowa defensive end A.J. Epenesa. “I think we played hard, but we made a lot of mistakes, and that’s on us.

“Once we clean up those mistakes, I think we can compete with anybody in the Big Ten.”

One of Iowa’s most costly mistakes came when reserve tight end Shaun Beyer was pushed into the ball on a Wisconsin punt in the third quarter. Beyer was trying to block and apparently lost track of the football.

The Badgers recovered the loose ball on the Iowa 10-yard line and then scored a touchdown three plays later to regain the lead at 14-10.

“There’s communication involved there, but it seemed like almost everybody was getting the message there,” Ferentz said of the miscue on the punt. “So for whatever reason, it didn’t quite get communicated there. And when you’re in that area, it’s dangerous.”

Ferentz was asked what his players are instructed to do when a punt is bouncing and rolling deep in Iowa territory.

"Get the hell away," he fired back.

Iowa now enters its bye week with records of 3-1 overall and 0-1 in the conference.

“I think we made progress over the first month, and really the two keys right now are how we respond and then how we move forward, and that’s where our focus will start,” Ferentz said.

Saturday’s game was vastly different than a year ago when Iowa was humiliated in Madison, losing 38-14 and gaining just 66 yards on offense.

But it still counts as one loss, and is almost like losing two games since the Badgers now have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Iowa in the Big Ten West Division.

“Extremely proud of this group today,’ said Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst. ‘We knew coming in that this was a great Iowa football team, very talented. I always have a lot of respect for how they’re coached. It wasn’t a perfect game by any means, but it was a great team win for us.”

Stanley played much better on Saturday compared to last season against Wisconsin when he only completed 8-of-24 passes for 41 yards.

The Wisconsin native passed for 256 yards and two touchdowns and also avoided being sacked after being sacked four times last season against Wisconsin.

And yet, it still wasn’t enough to end Iowa’s misery against the Badgers.

“We thought we had chances to win that game, but just really disappointed in the way the game turned out,” Stanley said.

Iowa did have chances to win Saturday’s game, lots of chances, but failed to seize the moment against an opponent that has a knack for seizing the moment.

Wisconsin rarely self-destructs and seems to find ways to beat Iowa, while the Hawkeyes are just the opposite.

Some fans will blame the play calling or they'll accuse Iowa of being too conservative on offense, too undisciplined on defense or too careless on special teams..

And while there might be some truth to that, Wisconsin also deserves credit for getting the job done under difficult circumstances.

"There were no fans to feed off of," said Alec Ingold. "It was just us. All we've got is all we need.That's what we said all week, and that's what happened."

Neither team could sustain any momentum in the first half, which ended in a 7-7 tie.

Iowa marched from its own 15-yard line to the Wisconsin 5 on it opening possession of the game. But the drive ended when Stanley was stopped short on a quarterback sneak on 4^th-and-1.

Wisconsin then drove 95 yards and scored the game’s first touchdown on a six-yard pass from Hornibrook to tight end Jake Ferguson with 14:31 left in the second quarter.

You could argue that the run-happy Badgers did Iowa a huge favor in the second quarter by throwing on 3^rd-and-2 from the Iowa 46-yard line instead of using star running back Jonathan Taylor or backup Taiwan Deal on a running play.

Hornibrook’s pass fell incomplete and the Badgers punted, giving Iowa a first down at its own 23.

The decision to have Hornibrook pass was questionable under the circumstances because the odds of him completing a pass into double coverage would seem far less likley than having Taylor run for two yards, especially considering Taylor averaged 5.3 yards per carry in the first half.

Iowa took advantage of the questionable call on its next possession by driving 77 yards for a touchdown on just four plays.

Junior tight end Noah Fant capped the drive by scoring on a 20-yard pass from Stanley with 5:15 left in the second quarter.

However, the key play on the drive came on the play before Fant's touchdown when Stanley fled from the pocket and completed a 46-yard pass to tight end T.J. Hockenson to the Badger 20. Hockenson made the catch despite being interfered with on the play.

Iowa then forced the Badgers into a three-and-out, shifting the momentum clearly to Iowa’s side.

The momentum didn’t last long, though, as Kyle Groeneweg fumbled on the punt return. Wisconsin defensive back D’Cota Dixon knocked the ball loose and then recovered the fumble at the Wisconsin 45. But the Badgers failed to capitalize and then punted for the fourth time in the first half.

Iowa's vaunted defense played well at times on Saturday, but still surrendered 415 yards and only had one sack.

"I think we're moving in the right direction and the thing that excites me is that we got a lot of potential to get a lot better," Ferentz said. "So that's pretty much at a lot of positions right now. That's where we've got to be focused and realize we still got an eight-game schedule to play."

Iowa' will hit the road for the first time this season when it faces Minnesota on Oct. 6 in Minneapolis.