Penn State knew they faced an uphill battle on Saturday night in Wisconsin, but as they have done all season to this point, the Nittany Lions dug deep in the second half to earn a 28-13 victory and go undefeated remain for a huge defeat. showdown against Ohio State next weekend.

Going into the game, the Badgers were playing their best football of the season offensively, largely due to the success they had at first down. That wasn’t the case against Penn State, as Wisconsin managed just 126 yards on 27 first downs (11 drives total, plus 16 gains). Furthermore, when you consider that 61 of those yards came in just two plays, plus the fact that PSU held the Badgers to 0 or negative yards on 11 of those 27 plays, it played a major role in the outcome.

“Obviously, we knew they were going to make it tough, no matter how aggressive they are, how athletic they are,” the Wisconsin head coach said. Luke Fickell. “But that probably comes down primarily to our ability to stay on track, run the offense and Braedyn (Locke) an opportunity. (That’s) probably where they’ve done the best job. We knew we wanted to stay out of third-and-long situations, but it really comes down to winning first and I think that’s where we struggled the most.”

Report card: Review of Penn State’s 28-13 win over Wisconsin

Despite these issues, Wisconsin still led Penn State 10-7 at halftime. An injury to the quarterback Drew Allar only complicated things for the Nittany Lions. But as so many of the nation’s top programs often do, Penn State got a big roll midway through the third quarter when it needed it most, when the safety Jaylen Reed intercepted Locke and took it back for a score.

“That’s one that probably hurts as much as anything,” Fickell said. “I can’t say it took the crowd out of the match or anything like that. It’s just one of those situations where it puts a little more pressure on the defense to understand that we have to make up for this somehow… Those are the kinds of things we have to look for. ways. We have been quite good in recent weeks and ready enough to deal with some of those situations, but that is one that is very difficult to overcome.

Allar’s injury will be a major talking point for Penn State fans and media this week, but as a backup quarterback Beau Pribula more than held its own in the second half. In addition to leading two scoring drives in the fourth quarter, Pribula completed his final nine pass attempts to finish 11 for 13 with 98 yards passing and a score.

Notebook: Penn State gets ‘best and ugliest’ win to stay undefeated

“They did a really good job with him in the second half and caused problems,” Fickell said when asked about Pribula. “I (wouldn’t) say we weren’t prepared for (Pribula). As much as they make you prepare for so many things, when he actually gets into the game, it becomes a bit of a different game. It’s caused us some problems. So twofold: Give them credit for having a plan for when he’s there, and I don’t think we did a good enough job of making sure we understood what he was going to do. But he also threw the football pretty well. He made some plays in the second half that were really big.”

Penn State now turns its attention to a top-five showdown with Ohio State next week at Beaver Stadium, while Wisconsin heads to Iowa. Before wrapping up his press conference, Fickell went out of his way to make it clear that the Nittany Lions are among the best in the conference. This especially applies to the defense.

“That’s a team we just finished playing with. If things don’t go well, the quarterback twists his knee, then they can probably hang their hat on the defense and probably get by for a while. They are so talented, I think,” Fickell said.