The frustrations of three consecutive conference UW losses were all but erased Saturday as Lee Evans and Jim Sorgi exploded for a school-record five touchdowns in the Badgers’ 56-21 win over visiting Michigan State.

Evans, who had previously held the record with three touchdown receptions in one game, caught 10 passes for a school-record 258 yards. Evans recorded touchdowns on receptions of nine, 18, 18, 70 and 75 yards in one of the greatest offensive performances in school history.

“Going into the game we knew what they were going to come out and do, and all week we stressed ‘beat man to man,'” Evans said. “It’s a matchup game. It’s you against him, and if you come out and beat your man, you’re going to have a lot of success. Fortunately I was able to do that today.”

Sorgi, in turn, put together another great performance following a hard-fought effort in last weekend’s loss to Minnesota. He completed 16 of 24 passes for 380 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions. The senior quarterback registered the third-highest, single-game, passing-yardage total in school history to go along with tying the school record for touchdown passes and establishing a new mark in passer efficiency with 268.38 pass rating.

“We’ve thrown and caught it better [over the last two weeks] than we have probably any time I’ve been here,” Wisconsin head coach Barry Alvarez said. “Your triggerman has to do that. (Sorgi is) very crisp. His timing is good. He stays in the pocket. I don’t think he threw a bad ball today.”

The Badgers set the tone on the game’s opening drive when Sorgi completed four passes on the nine-play, 65-yard drive to Evans, including a nine yard scoring pass in the back of the end zone where Owen Daniels ran wide open as well.

“We liked the matchup with Lee and their corners,” Alvarez said. “A lot of people we’ve played have comboed him, but Jim’s going to take a look at Lee in a lot of our routes and then go from there.”

Lost in the shuffle of Saturday’s Sorgi-to-Evans show were the performances of sophomore running back Dwayne Smith and the play of a reconfigured 3-3-5 Badger defense.

Smith, who replaced tailback Booker Stanley after the freshman went down with an ankle sprain during the game’s first series, carried the ball 21 times for a career-high 207 yards and three touchdowns.

Smith scored the Badgers’ second touchdown of the game on a drive set up by a Jim Leonhard interception and 25-yard return. Smith took a Sorgi pass out on the flat for 21 yards down the sideline then was awarded an additional 15 yards thanks to a facemask penalty committed by the Spartans’ Derron Ware. After a 10-yard carry from Badger fullback Matt Bernstein, Smith got the ball on a three yard scoring rush to give the Badgers a 14-0 lead with 0:27 remaining in the first quarter.

With Smith nearly acting as the Badgers’ lone option in the running game, the sophomore took advantage of his repetitions and found some consistency after only recording 63 yards in the team’s last four games.

“That helped a lot; getting a rhythm for the game and be able to see the holes open up,” Smith said. “It wasn’t that hard today (because) the offensive line had a great day.”

Smith also scored on runs of 14 and 26 yards, and had scampers of 39 and 60 yards to further help the Wisconsin offense who has been without home run hitter Anthony Davis for most of the season.

Defensively, Wisconsin found reliable pressure on Spartan quarterback Jeff Smoker thanks to a new defensive scheme that matched up exceptionally well with Michigan State’s pass oriented offense.

“We came up with a scheme with three down linemen and three linebackers where we could blitz out of it,” Alvarez said. “We felt we could get pressure with three with Alex (Lewis) and keep some of our guys fresh and get eight guys in the secondary where we could press up on their spread formations and still have combinations and double some guys. We could give (Michigan State) a lot of different pictures, and I don’t think they’ve seen some of those before.”

Lewis, who played as a rush end in the Badgers’ 26-23 loss to Purdue earlier this season, recorded 3.5 tackles for a loss as well as two sacks and a forced fumble. Junior defensive linemen Anttaj Hawthorne and Jonathan Welsh recorded three sacks combined as well as 5.5 tackles for a loss.

The Badgers used the three-man rush to adjust to the Spartan’s Big Ten-worst rushing offense. While Michigan State was able to record 95 rushing yards, they had just nine yards on 22 carries through the third quarter.

“We went with our silver package basically the whole game,” UW defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove said. “We’re trying to get the best athletes on the field. Some of our best players aren’t playing right now. We’re trying to get our best 11 on the field.”

With a three man rush, the Badgers were able to drop eight players into coverage and jam the Spartan wide receivers at the line while still having the safeties help over the top.

The scheme held Smoker to just 207 yards on 16-of-31 passing and two interceptions to just two touchdowns.

Evans continued his record march with the Badgers’ third touchdown of the game, getting past double coverage as Jim Sorgi rolled out of the pocket to his left and delivered a perfect throw just over the reach of Spartan defensive back Greg Cooper and into Evans’ hands for a 75-yard scoring strike at 4:21 remaining in the second quarter.

The Spartans countered with a 21-yard touchdown pass from Smoker to sophomore Kyle Brown after a 59-yard kickoff return from specialist Chad Simon.

But after two more Evans’ touchdowns, including a simple eight-yard-out rout that the senior wide receiver turned into a 70-yard sprint to the end zone after splitting two Spartan defenders, Wisconsin had the game firmly it its grasp.

“This is crunch time,” Sorgi said. “We’ve only got one more game at the Camp and one more game overall with the bowl game. We needed to go out and leave our legacy, and I think we’re starting to do that.”