The Wisconsin Badgers have won consecutive games for the first time all season after defeating the Army Black Knights 20-14 on Saturday night at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison.

The Badgers added another tally to their win column, which is ultimately all that matters. But it’s tough to be all that impressed with the performance, especially on offense. This game was not decided until the final minute in favor of the two-touchdown favorites.

At the halfway point of the regular season, Wisconsin is 3-3 over all and 1-2 in Big Ten play, but the non-conference slate is now over. The Badgers still have some of their top goals available if they can figure out a way to play consistent football against the B1G schedule. At this point, Wisconsin would likely be favored in every game the rest of the season aside from maybe the one against the Iowa Hawkeyes. With Iowa’s loss to the Purdue Boilermakers on Saturday, the race for the B1G West is wide open.

Before Wisconsin moves on to next week’s road game against Purdue, let’s reveal the report card from the Badgers’ win over Army.

Offense: C

It seems like we’ll see the same thing from this offense every week. The rushing attack found plenty of success on Saturday but the passing game did not show significant signs of improvement. And Wisconsin needs a better passing game to go on a winning run down the stretch of B1G play.

Wisconsin’s first drive ended in a result we’ve grown way too familiar with as quarterback Graham Mertz was pressured and fumbled, handing Army the ball at the Badgers’ 43-yard line. But Mertz started strong in the passing game, completing 6 of his first 7 passes for 106 yards. He found an open Jake Ferguson for decent gains; the tight end led the team with 4 catches for 58 yards.

However, on Mertz’s final eight throws, from late in the second quarter on, he completed just 2 passes for 6 yards. Overall, Mertz completed 8 of 15 for 112 yards without a touchdown or an interception. He added two short rushing touchdowns on a bootleg and a quarterback sneak. This will likely be the worst passing defense Wisconsin sees the rest of the season, and the Badgers still need a ton of work in this area.

Braelon Allen and Chez Mellusi split the workload evenly with 16 carries apiece, but Allen looks like the better option at this point. He finished with 108 yards including a 33-yard touchdown run. Allen was very effective in the first half but did not touch the ball at all in the third quarter. He is running hard and looks to be the star of this offense for years to come. He recovered his own fumble in the fourth quarter, and taking care of the ball is something he’ll need to work on. Meanwhile, Mellusi gained 66 yards on the ground.

Wisconsin released some unfortunate news prior to the game: Running back Isaac Guerendo will miss the rest of the season with an injury. Now in his fourth season in the program, the biggest reason he hasn’t seen consistent work is due to health, so this has to be getting extremely frustrating for him.

Guerendo is the fourth scholarship running back Wisconsin has lost since fall camp began. Jalen Berger, Loyal Crawford and Antwan Roberts are no longer with the team. All of a sudden, Wisconsin’s No. 3 back is walk-on Brady Schipper. Wisconsin has to hope neither Mellusi or Allen go down with an injury because there’s a significant dropoff in talent behind them.

Defense: B

It’s difficult to have many strong takeaways for a defense that faced a triple-option offense because it will likely be years before Wisconsin will play against that system again. Army couldn’t get much going in the first half, but the Black Knights found a groove after halftime to keep the game within reach.

As it has plenty of times this season, Wisconsin’s defense responded well to Mertz’s early turnover and forced a three-and-out in a drive that started in Badgers territory. The star of the game was linebacker Leo Chenal, who was constantly in the Army backfield. He had 17 tackles including 2.5 for loss with a sack. His biggest play came with the Black Knights trailing by 6 points with less than 3 minutes to play, forcing a fumble that UW’s Keeanu Benton recovered. That led to a 1-yard Badgers touchdown on the next play.

The only blemish on this defense this season has been giving up long passing plays, and Army, which rarely throws the ball, did some damage in the air. On just 6 attempts, Black Knights QB Jabari Lewis completed 5 for 87 yards including a 36-yard pass on Army’s final drive that set up a touchdown, cutting Army’s deficit to 20-14 with less than a minute to go.

The triple option is the ultimate equalizer; it benefits teams that have a significant talent disadvantage because some defenses can never figure it out. Wisconsin survived it and will see more traditional offenses moving forward, and this unit remains the strength of the team.

Special teams: B

Linebacker Jack Sanborn made a huge impact on special teams on two key moments. On a fake punt on 4th-and-1, Sanborn took a direct snap for an 8-yard gain, setting up Wisconsin’s second touchdown. Additionally, the senior recovered the final onside kick, hanging on to the ball despite a massive collision. If he had failed to secure it, Army might have had the ball near midfield trailing by 6 with 38 seconds to play.

Collin Larsh did not attempt a field goal and made two extra points, but one was blocked. He handled one kickoff, while Jack Van Dyke had three kickoff attempts with one touchback. Andy Vujnovich’s strong season continued as three of his five punts pinned Army inside its own 20-yard line. Nothing too exciting happened in the punt return or kick return game for either side.