PROVO — Outgunned. Outmanned. Outnumbered. Outplanned.

To quote BYU head coach Kalani Sitake, the Cougars were completely overwhelmed in the first-ever game against a Big Ten opponent played at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

Alex Hornibrook threw four touchdown passes, and 10th-ranked Wisconsin held BYU out of the end zone en route to a 40-6 win in front of 61,143 fans in Provo.

“That’s a great team; you see why they are ranked,” said Sitake, whose team fell to 1-3 with their third-straight loss to a Power 5 opponent. “I thought we were overwhelmed as a group. They did a good job of keeping us from getting anything going.”

Jonathan Taylor ran for 128 yards and a score, surpassing the 100-yard rushing mark on the Badgers’ first drive of the second half. The freshman from Salem, New Jersey helped Wisconsin (3-0) pile up more than 200 yards against the Cougars’ front-seven.

But the emergence was in quarterback Hornibrook, who completed 18-of-19 passes for 256 yards and four touchdowns. Hornibrook broke the game open with a pair of touchdown strikes to wide receiver Quintez Cephus in the second quarter, giving the Badgers a 24-6 halftime lead.

Ula Toluta’u led BYU (1-3) with 58 yards on 13 carries in his first career start. Beau Hoge, who filled in for injured quarterback Tanner Mangum, threw for 111 yards with two interceptions and ran for another 17 for BYU.

Hoge’s fill-in performance was admirable, at times. But he also looked overwhelmed, such as when he gave up a safety while backed into his own end zone with 6:41 left in the fourth quarter.

“It wasn’t great, but I thought he did well to begin,” Sitake said. “But the turnovers are something I’m not happy with. That’s something we cannot do; there are times to just throw the dang ball away.”

Here are three thoughts as BYU heads into next week’s bye week.

New signal caller

Hoge earned the start at quarterback for the injured Tanner Mangum, who came up limping with an apparent ankle injury on the final drive of the Cougars’ 19-13 loss to rival Utah.

Hoge, who was playing in his first game in two years, had his first pass attempt picked off by Wisconsin linebacker T.J. Edwards.

But overall, Hoge’s debut start was a mixed bag. Yes, the redshirt sophomore and son of ESPN analyst Merril Hoge threw two picks and did not lead a touchdown drive while also pacing two scoring drives that ended in field goals from Rhett Almond in the first half.

“I think he did pretty well. He showed glimpses of greatness, and made plays when he needed to make them,” said tight end Matt Bushman, who caught one pass for nine yards. “There are things to get better at for all of us, but I think he mostly did what the coaches told him to do. He messed up a couple of times, but all of us messed up a couple of times. There’s no one to blame.”

Hoge managed to pull points out of his second offensive drive under center, and his 50-yard strike on a dime to Micah Simon in the second quarter was the longest offensive play of the Cougars’ 1-3 season.

But like the rest of the offensive, consistency never showed up.

“We couldn’t sustain drives, and couldn’t get any momentum going,” Sitake said. “It wasn’t how I pictured our offense going today. They started to get some momentum early on, but (Wisconsin) made some adjustments and we couldn’t adjust to that. We’ve just got to score more points.”

Toluta'u makes strides

There weren’t a lot of positives in BYU’s 206 yards of offense, but the running come took another step toward coming into focus.

Former East High star running back Ula Toluta’u was recruited by a bevy of Power 5 conference programs, and signed with Wisconsin before serving a two-year mission for the LDS Church in Bakersfield, California.

He showed current Badgers coach Paul Chryst why predecessor Gary Anderson recruited him Saturday. Toluta’u ran the ball 13 times for 58 yards in the loss, including 46 yards on seven carries in the first quarter — both career highs.

The first-time starter was the second-best rusher on the field Saturday, second only to Taylor, the All-American candidate. He also faced limited reps and big chunk plays in the second half, in part because of Wisconsin’s defensive adjustments and because Toluta’u is still working back into full form from an injury suffered in fall camp.

“We’re trying to fix it. I can’t tell you everything; we’re just trying to do our parts,” Bushman said. “There are glimpses of doing great things, but then there are other times where we aren’t good at all. We need to find a balance, to put defenses on their heels, and then make plays.”

Defense didn’t come through

A bright spot of BYU’s anemic offense through the first three games of the season was a defense that rated among the best.

Limiting Lousiana State to 27 points, and holding Utah below the 20-point threshold are good things for the Cougar D.

But that wasn’t a strong point Saturday.

They ran the same play three times, and we were not in the right place at the right time,” linebacker Butch Pau’u said. “That’s just us as players not doing our jobs.”

Taylor led a ground assault that carved up 235 net yards of offense, while Hornibrook threw for a season-high 256 yards and set a school single-game completion percentage record by going 18-of-19 (84.7 percent), besting a mark set by Darrell Bevell in 1993.

"(BYU's) defense is the best defense we have seen to date," Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst said. "We had a lot of respect for BYU's defensive scheme. I think they have some older guys who understand the scheme well, and I felt like they had a couple of really good football players that we had to handle. Going up against a veteran defense was good for our receivers."

Pau’u led the team with seven tackles, and the Cougars forced just four tackles for loss — including Corbin Kaufusi’s first sack of the season.

“He acknowledged the fact that Wisconsin came here and kicked our butts,” Bushman said in relaying Sitake’s message to the Cougar locker room. “They played a great game, and he said that we need to all do our parts. He talked about each of us doing our 1/11th, and we can’t try to do more than we can do.”

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