Christian Alliegro Plays With Broken Arm in Wisconsin's 34-0 Loss to Ohio State
MADISON, Wis. — Luke Fickell is looking for any kind of bright spot right now. Following his team’s 34-0 loss to No. 1 Ohio State (7-0, 4-0) on Saturday, Fickell and Wisconsin (2-5, 0-4) were handed their fifth-straight defeat on the season and have been outscored 71-0 in their last two games.
“I’m not going to sit here and sugarcoat things, but I wanted to mention a few things. We got it handed to us today in all areas, to be honest with you,” Fickell said in his post-game remarks. “But, there’s some notable guys that we need to continue to build around.
“A guy like Christian Alliegro, in case you’re wondering, broke his arm in the first quarter. They took him in, x-rayed it. They casted it up and said, ‘He can try and play if he wants.’ I think he played every snap from there on out. Came back in at halftime, casted it up even bigger, went back out and played the entire second half, because he cares. Because he’s not going to let his brothers down.”
Wisconsin suffered back-to-back home shutouts for the first time since 1968. Going back to 2024, the Badgers have now dropped 10 consecutive games against power-four opponents. In Big Ten play this season, UW is being outscored 119-20.
Alliegro played 62 snaps against Ohio State. He finished with 6.0 tackles and a game-high 2.0 tackles for loss, prompting Fickell to believe his team hasn’t quit on him.
“I’ll be honest with you, that’s where, when you ask, ‘Do guys lose hope?’ Well, if a guy lost hope, then he wouldn’t go in,” said Fickell. “So, if you want to know where the hope is, it’s, it’s in guys like that.”
Alliegro wasn’t the only potentially notable injury on Saturday. During the loss, the Badgers lost the likes of running back Dilin Jones, offensive lineman Kerry Kodanko, and cornerback Ricardo Hallman, who went down near the end of the game. That’s on top of starting quarterback Billy Edwards, who has made two brief appearances in a pair of games thus far.
Edwards, who hasn’t played since the Big Ten opener against Maryland, did not go through his normal warmup routine on Saturday.
“I think we’re trying to figure out, maybe we’re doing too much before — he goes out there and does as much as he can Saturdays and then on Sundays he’s a little bit sore,” Fickell explained. “It’s like, is this kind of an insanity thing, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get different results. We kind of backed him off this week and see, hopefully he feels a Hell of a lot better Sunday, Monday, and then see where we are.
Wisconsin returns to action Saturday at No. 8 Oregon (6-1, 3-1). A kickoff time is still TBD.
