Playing a beaten-up, injury-depleted Huskie team was just what the Wisconsin football team needed to snap its two-game losing streak.
The Badgers scored touchdowns on four of its first five possessions and looked like the team that was ranked in the Top 5 two weeks ago as they cruised to a 44-3 victory over NIU.

The game got so out-of-hand that the biggest excitement among the sold-out crowd of 81,883 at Camp Randall Stadium came late in the second quarter, when a tape of Wisconsin offensive lineman Kenny Jones singing “Afternoon Delight” was played on each of the stadium’s two jumbo screens.

In between the coin toss and the excitement generated by the 1976 No. 1 single was a game that was completely one-sided. Badgers’ tail back P.J. Hill rushed for 183 of the teams’ 331 total rushing yards. On the other hand, NIU rushed for negative 13 yards and generated only 99 yards of total offense.

“I knew it was going to be tough,” head coach Joe Novak said. “We didn’t block them very well. Our offensive line has really improved over the course of the year but today we didn’t play well and I’ll be anxious to go back and see the line.”

The game couldn’t have started off worse for the Huskies, as redshirt freshman Ricky Crider was taken off the field by ambulance after covering the opening kick-off.

“Yeah, not a very good start,” Novak said. “I guess [Crider] broke both bones in his leg.”

With the game all but over at halftime, backup quarterback Ryan Morris replaced Dan Nicholson and led NIU on its only scoring drive of the game by connecting with Matt Simon on a 38-yard pass down the side-line, setting up a 34-yard Chris Nendick field goal late in the third quarter.

NIU’s inability to generate offense resulted in the Huskies’ passing the ball 25 times while only rushing it 18 times.

“Honestly, unless we’re playing LSU, I think we can run some,” Novak said. “They’re a better team skill-wise than any team we’ve played, but we still thought we could run the ball some.”

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