Northwestern Football: 3 takeaways from upset win over Wisconsin

3. Turnovers, turnovers and more turnovers

Turnovers were a major takeaway. The turnovers hurt a lot more for Wisconsin than Northwestern at the end of the day. Wisconsin had five turnovers, while Northwestern had one. When you think of Wisconsin football you think of taking care of the ball, but that was not the case Saturday.

The Badgers’ five turnovers matched their most since 2015 which coincidentally enough was against Northwestern.

Wisconsin was driving on multiple occasions throughout the game, but turnovers helped halt those drives altogether. Graham Mertz had four turnovers on the day. He threw three interceptions, and was striped sacked and fumbled for his fourth turnover. Running back Garrett Groshek also fumbled the ball resulting in the other turnover for the Badgers.

Northwestern’s lone turnover was when running back Isaiah Bowser fumbled the handoff at the goal line as the Wildcats were going in for a score to make it 14-0, but the ball was recovered by Wisconsin in the end zone to keep it a 7-0 lead for Northwestern. This costly turnover did not come back to hurt Northwestern in the long run.