After a dismal offensive performance in Saturday’s Running Rebel upset, head coach Barry Alvarez stressed Monday that his team needs to leave that game behind and to use it as an inspiration for improvement.

“A week ago, everybody felt pretty good about the offense,” coach Alvarez said. “But you still have to execute; and we didn’t execute.”

Averaging 36 points in games against West Virginia and Akron the past two weeks, the Badgers figured to roll against the Rebels — a team that had allowed an average of 21 points per game. Mistakes piled upon mistakes, though, as the Badgers only mustered 3 points against the UNLV defense.

“Fumbles running the ball, overthrows, interceptions … that doesn’t put you where you want to be,” Alvarez commented.

More accurately, the Badgers did put themselves where they wanted to be; they just couldn’t manage much once they got there. Five red-zone possessions, three of which had the Badgers within five yards of the end zone, resulted in only one offensive conversion in the game — a 27-yard field goal in the second quarter.

“Whether it be a fumble, or whether it be a penalty that set us back, or whether it be taking a sack instead of throwing it away,” Alvarez said, “it was all we could do not to take advantage of the field position.”

The Badgers’ overall production numbers dropped strikingly from their first two games. Both the ground and air attacks took steps backward Saturday, following impressive performances in the first two weeks. The numbers are skewed by the fact that the NCAA does not factor yards lost on sacks into net rushing yardage; but skewed by this anomaly or not, the Badgers gained a net of 52 yards on 42 rushing attempts against the Rebels.

They had gained 310 yards on 44 attempts the previous week. That’s the difference between 1.2 yards per carry and 7 yards per carry. Although Dwayne Smith performed respectably (140 yards from scrimmage offset by 2 fumbles), Anthony Davis’s early exit precipitated the falloff.

Davis’s status for this weekend’s game against North Carolina remains uncertain.

“He’s still in a boot,” Alvarez revealed of the nation’s top rusher for the first two weeks. “I don’t know if he’s improved.”

With conference play beginning in two weeks, the top running back won’t be rushed back prematurely against North Carolina.

“We’ll have to see where he is,” Alvarez said. “If he’s ready, he will play.”

The Badger football team is looking to regroup as their coach tries to motivate them once more after the disheartening performance.

“You have to put a game to rest,” he said. “Win or lose.”

That doesn’t mean the team won’t be looking for quite a bit of improvement, though. No one is underestimating North Carolina based on their 0-2 start this year — those losses have come against an impressive Florida State squad and in a triple overtime barn-burner against Syracuse.

If the Badgers hope to win, Alvarez says, “we’ll have to play better than we’ve played in our last three games.”

The main focus will be on not allowing errors in judgment and sloppy ball handling to control the outcome of this game, the way they controlled the outcome of Saturday’s. “We’ve got to correct a lot of things from [Saturday’s loss],” Alvarez said. “We have to learn from our mistakes.”

Simply playing a more solid game should put the Badgers back on the winning track. With some of the top playmakers in the country, the team doesn’t need to worry as much about the talent level of other teams as they need to worry about the danger in complacency.

“It’s always about what we can do. It’s not about our opponent,” Alvarez said. “It’s about us being consistent, about us improving, about us correcting some of the mistakes that we’ve made. That’s what we can control.”

“I’m not satisfied with where we are. We haven’t made the progress that any of the coaches want,” Alvarez added. Hopefully the progression will start Saturday.