After three major injuries, Wisconsin Badgers running back Chez Mellusi is back and battering opponents

The path to Chez Mellusi's first touchdown of the season wasn't easy. Nor was the path to reaching this stage of his career.

"I just wasn't going to be denied, basically," the Wisconsin senior running back said.

He was talking about the score that gave the Badgers a 7-0 lead in the second quarter against Western Michigan on Friday, part of a rugged 28-14 win at Camp Randall Stadium. He could just as easily be talking about his career, one besieged by catastrophic injuries.

"I wouldn't say it was just any other game," Mellusi said late Friday. "I would say it was the return of myself. Last year, the way it ended was just so abrupt. It defintiely took a toll on me mentally. Just to be out there again, I don't really take anything for granted. I think at this point in time, I'm just going to play every day like it's my last."

Mellusi dodged would-be tacklers and ran through another, lunging across the goal line with a Western Michigan player at his ankles for the 9-yard score. By night's end, he had a team-best 82 yards on 19 carries, more attempts than all but one game over his past two seasons at UW.

"That's just a testament to my coaches believing in me, and I've got to be better," Mellusi said. "I think there are some plays I left out there that I could have had more yards on. I've just got to look at the film and be better."

His most recent hurdle overcome: a fractured fibula in last year's Big Ten opener against Purdue. Four games into the season, and his year was over, just like it was two years earlier when he tore his ACL . In between, during the 2022 season, he broke his arm in a game against Northwestern , causing him to miss more than a month of the season.

"Football is a four-quarter game, obviously, and we have to be better, but that's a big part of what we do here," he said, referring to the Badgers' two-score rally in the fourth quarter but, again, with words that could easily be assigned to his greater story.

More: Have a question about the Wisconsin Badgers' football victory last night? Ask Mark Stewart.

"We were ecstatic about them all of camp, wanting to play live against a real team because we knew that they ran the ball so hard," offensive lineman Joe Brunner said, referring to Mellusi and Oklahoma transfer Tawee Walker, who ran 15 times on Friday in his Badgers debut, racking up 68 yards and his own touchdown. "To see that live in a real game, that's who you want to block for, those type of backs, so it was awesome."

Brunner said on Mellusi's touchdown run, he saw three men swarming Mellusi and figured the play was over.

"The love for the game that they both have and wanting to run the ball hard, wanting the extra yards, you love that as an offensive lineman, especially at Wisconsin," he said.

Mellusi, who played two years at Clemson before transferring to Wisconsin, surely didn't figure he'd be suiting up for a fourth season in Madison. He's now the elder statesman in a running back room that features a bevy of newcomers, with Walker and true freshmen Darion Dupree and Dilin Jones, high-profile recruits who didn't see the field in the opener.

On a night when Wisconsin couldn't break through for big plays on offense — no play from scrimmage racked up more than 17 yards — Mellusi and Walker chewed up the ground they had to work with.

"They did a great job taking care of the football, they did a great job making some of those plays," Badgers coach Luke Fickell said. "There were a couple of those negative-yard plays when we got in the red zone, all of us recognize that we have to do better.

"There's some younger guys in that room, in that tailback and running back room, that we want to get some opportunities to, and had a plan to. Not because we thought we'd be in a different position (in tonight's game) ... but those guys were feeling it and doing a good job and we had to continue to stay with them. But it's a long year, and we're going to need a lot of guys back there. But those two guys give us an opportunity to do what we want to do."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: After three major injuries, Wisconsin Badgers running back Chez Mellusi is back and battering opponents