Fake punt key call in Wisky win

IOWA CITY - Oh, he was nervous. He'll be the first to admit that.

But then Brad Nortman saw all that fake grass in front of him.

“We ran it all week in practice, but you can't really similate a game situation. My heart was beating," the Wisconsin punter said about his crucial 17-yard fourth-quarter, fourth-down run Saturday that helped his team to a 31-30 win over Iowa. "Standing back there, I was nervous, I was excited, I was all of the above. But it ended up going exactly how Coach planned it."

Facing a six-point deficit and a 4th-and-4 at his own 26 with about six minutes to go, Wisconsin Coach Bret Bielema made the gutsiest of gutsy calls. Seeing Iowa in a punt-return setup, he called for a fake.

After receiving the snap, Nortman took a couple strides forward to sell punt, looked up and saw wide-open spaces. First down Badgers.

Twelves plays later, and Wisky had its touchdown and its second great win in as many weeks.

"Coach drew it up, and it just worked perfectly," said Nortman, an all-conference linebacker in high school. “He told me (in practice) that maybe I should actually slide and not get hit, but I told him I wanted to score. Naturally, I slid in the actual game.”

“I heard (the call) right before we snapped it," said Wisconsin safety Jay Valai, who was standing on the sideline. "Then I saw the gates of heaven open up. Brad just took off and showed us his high-school athleticism. You've got to Coach Bielema all the respect in the world. He made a great call, and we executed it very well.”

Bielema just smiled when asked about the fake.

“Whew. That was a deep breath," he said. "Something we had seen on film. With that scheme that we run from a punt standpoint, certain teams are going to defend it differently. We'd seen that basically they had gone with those two edge pressures and were covering down. We just made the call. Once I saw them put the punt-return unit on there, it was a check at the line of scrimmage, we gave them the call.

"Brad Nortman did the mechanics and took off running. He came back to the sideline and I told him ‘You could have gotten at least five more yards.' But it was great execution, a great fake.”

Not to mention a great call.

Here's video of Nortman talking about his big play: