[media-credit name=’BRYAN FAUST/Herald Photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]For the third consecutive season, the Badgers have exploded out of the gate, exceeding all expectations with a surprisingly good start to their football season.

However, third-year starting quarterback John Stocco knows all too well that as quickly as fans jump on the bandwagon of a team headed toward apparent success, they can jump right off it with one bad loss.

"In this league, you can't make a mistake against anybody, really," Stocco said. "The thing about winning is when you keep winning, the games keep getting bigger and bigger, so that's something that we understand and we just have to keep pushing forward."

And evident from UW's 2004 loss at Michigan State and the 2005 loss at Northwestern, the Badgers have shown a propensity to lose to potentially weaker opponents on the road, derailing each respective season in one way or another.

"We talk a lot about finishing," Stocco said. "A lot of times, I think it's just how the schedule goes, if you lose your first two games and win the rest of them, people will be talking about how great of a season you had, whereas if you lose one or two at the end, people will talk about the collapse and things like that."

While Wisconsin (6-1, 3-1 Big Ten) has not reached that climactic end of the season just yet — which will include games against Penn State and at Iowa — the Badgers have a chance to prove what they're made of with a crucial road game at Purdue (5-2, 2-1) Saturday at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Ind.

Perhaps the most intriguing matchup will be the Boilermakers' pass offense versus the Badgers' pass defense. Purdue quarterback Curtis Painter threw for a career-high 431 yards last week against Northwestern, a lofty accomplishment for playing in Joe Tiller's pass-happy system.

With the effort, Painter moved into third place in the country with 2,218 passing yards on the season. The Boilermakers rank fourth in Division I-A football at 327.1 yards per game through the air, largely due to junior wideout Dorien Bryant (41 receptions, 545 yards, three touchdowns).

"Painter is a player that can definitely throw the football," UW head coach Bret Bielema said. "He's got more than a covey of receivers to throw to as well as the tight ends and the running backs. The thing I've kind of seen with Painter is he's probably beginning to get more like [ex-Boilermaker standout Kyle] Orton was. He's a guy that really can throw the short pass and the intermediate pass with a good amount of accuracy."

However, Painter and his wide receivers will have their hands full with a UW secondary that has improved with each week and is making a name for itself as one of the stingiest in the nation. Wisconsin ranks ninth in the NCAA in scoring defense (12.7 points per game), sixth in total defense (240 yards per) and, most importantly, third of all teams in defending the pass (a paltry 123.1 yards per contest).

So, with two powers colliding, UW defensive backs coach Kerry Cooks said the Boilermakers will prove to be one of Wisconsin's biggest challenges thus far in the season, at least from an aerial-attack standpoint.

"They present a lot of challenges," Cooks said. "Obviously, they're leading the conference in a lot of pass categories, they've got some great wide receivers, the quarterback's playing well."

The Boilermakers are averaging a smidgen under 40 pass attempts a game, far and away tops in the Big Ten. Comparatively, Stocco and the Badgers have thrown less than 25 times per game.

"Any time you're going to [see that many] passes per game, you better make sure that you're where you need to be," Cooks said. "They do a lot of different things on offense in the passing game, and we just got to be ready for the challenge."

Cooks said the game plan won't change, Wisconsin will continue to play defense the way it has on the way to the 6-1 start.

"We've made plays against everybody. We've just got to make more plays than we lose," Cooks said. "The guys will be patient, we'll try to challenge them when we can and do different things to help us out back there."

On the other side of the ball, Stocco leads an upstart offense against a suspect Purdue defense (last in the Big Ten in both scoring and total defense), along with running back P.J. Hill, only one of two backs in the country to eclipse 1,000 rushing yards so far.

When asked if there was something special about this year's Badger team, Stocco simply said the players continue to take things one day at a time and not think about past letdowns or possible future events.

"Our mind is just on Purdue right now and that's all we want to think about, we just know that there's a lot of things that we have to pick up," said the senior quarterback. "[This season is] what we make of it, we just got to stay focused. … We've just got to come out with a great attitude and just keep going."