Three touchdowns on 11 carries and 115 yards in the cold rain isn’t a bad day for any running back.

It was especially not a bad day for Corey Clement, the Wisconsin football junior who posted the aforementioned stat line in his first game in nearly two months.

He did it feeling at about 85 percent, he said Monday.

Clement said he hopes for an increased workload during practice, but it is still too early in the week to tell. In the past few weeks, Clement has only practiced the first half of practice, then sat out the remainder.

Head coach Paul Chryst isn’t sure how the staff will handle Clement in practice yet, either.

“I think you’ve got to let the body guide you, and I feel good with what we’ve been doing and how we’ve approached it and what he’s done, and need to just continue to do that,” Chryst said.

Clement said his doctor told him he couldn’t re-injure himself. While the doctor’s official prognosis after the surgery was four to six weeks, ultimately Clement’s tolerance for pain would dictate how quickly he’d return to the field. Clement’s return Saturday marked four weeks after the procedure.

“This is a test of my own strength,” Clement said. “It’s really a mental thing. Some people have it worse. And I keep thinking that.”

Two days after Saturday’s game, Clement said he was still sore, but will practice on Tuesday.

Clement’s rust showed as the game wore on. He reeled off a 58-yard gain late in the third quarter, but a Rutgers defender chased him down. It was evident Clement wasn’t running at full speed in the waning yards of the dash.

“If I was 100 percent, he wouldn’t have caught me,” Clement said.

Badgers look forward to break

When the Badgers travel to College Park, Maryland for Saturday’s matchup against the Terrapins, it will mark their 10th week in a row with a game.

But next Saturday, Nov. 14, the team will have its first bye of the season.

It has been a grind thus far, Wisconsin quarterback Joel Stave said, going all the way to the four weeks of training camp before the actual season.

“That, stacked on four weeks of camp going into the year, that’s a long time,” Stave said. “The physical grind and the mental grind is a lot on guys.”

Stave said the team uses Sundays and Mondays to recuperate physically, while preparing for their next opponent mentally by watching tape and going over scouting reports.

Senior safety Michael Caputo pointed out strength and conditioning coach Ross Kolodzieg and his staff’s work  to keep the players fresh throughout the grind of a football season, all while maintaining a rigorous strength regimen. For example, just a couple of weeks ago, Caputo said, players were setting personal bests on the squat rack.

And mentally, Caputo said, all is well for the Badgers.

“Mentally, I think we’re fine,” Caputo said. “I think we’re fit. I think we’re good in that regard.”