WKU Badgered 34-3 by Wisconsin

Wisconsin dominated this game from start to finish. Reasonable people and unreasonable fans will disagree about how thorough the blowout was, and in the end it will not matter.

Wisconsin is at another level at this point, and WKU is still trying to adapt to Mike Sanford as coach. A concern last year — a major one — was the sack rate by current-Dallas Cowboy Mike White. The new man, Drew Eckels looked good avoiding the rush and making some throws down field.

You can be forgiven for looking at the box score and reading the above sentence and feeling confused. It is true, 15/26 passing for 167 is not ideal, nor it is it winning football but it is a good indicator of the kind of play we can expect from Eckels in conference play when it matters.

The run game will be bolstered by Eckels’ ability to scramble — shuffle? — and not stand tall and be sacked. He had 38 rush yards himself, ending the game as the leading rusher. The _actual_ rush game is still something to be figured out, but let us credit the Wisconsin run defense before blaming the Sanford squad.

Things get infinitely easier next week against Maine on ESPN+. Right now, WKU fans can feel good about that loss — and it seems they do.