The misty air soaking the 77,849 that filled Camp Randall wasn’t enough to suppress the early-game fireworks in the Wisconsin football team’s 51-3 rout of Indiana Saturday afternoon.

Indiana (4-6, 2-4 Big Ten) came in boasting the country’s ninth-best scoring offense averaging 43 points a game, but was quickly grounded when Wisconsin freshman cornerback Sojourn Shelton  intercepted Hoosiers quarterback Nate Sudfeld on the Hoosiers’ fifth play from scrimmage.

“I knew they were going to be a team that threw the ball deep,” Shelton said. “He threw it up. I saw it and at that point I just wanted to turn into the receiver.”

Wisconsin’s (8-2, 5-1) game-opening turnover set the stage on the seven-yard line for senior running back James White who burst through the first level and was loose, bringing Camp Randall to its feet on a record-setting 93-yard touchdown run to give the Badgers a lead that they would never give back.

“He broke it and away he went. It would be a great way to start the football game every week, so if we can continue that it would be good,” Wisconsin head coach Gary Andersen said with a chuckle after the game.

White’s explosive play on Wisconsin’s first drive was conceived on an adjustment made by the offensive-linemen and coaches in the tunnel before the game even started.

“That first play, we actually made an adjustment as we were running out of the tunnel,” redshirt freshman Dan Voltz said. “My coach came over to me and we kind of switched up the ideas a little bit. It was just a zone play to the right, so nothing special but we just executed and it was a touchdown.”

The 93-yard run by White broke the record for the longest run in Wisconsin history – previously held by Tom Brigham for a 91-yard run in 1963 – and put the senior over the 1,000-yard mark for the second time in his career.

“It feels good,” White said of reaching 1,000 yards rushing this season. “It’s probably every running backs goal to get 1,000 yards … I mean, it’s a good accomplishment but we still have a lot of things to do out here the next two weeks.”

The defense put Wisconsin in a position to put Indiana in a deep hole early after Sudfeld turned the ball over on consecutive plays on a fumbled snap that was recovered by senior outside linebacker Brendan Kelly on the Hoosiers’ own 14-yard line.

“It started well,” Kelly said. “Two turnovers in the first quarter is always going to take the wind out of the sails of an offense.”

This time it was redshirt sophomore running back Melvin Gordon’s turn to take a trip to the end zone for the first time in three weeks, putting Wisconsin up 14-0 less than three minutes into the game.

Sophomore kicker Jack Russell kept the scoring party going for the Badgers making two-consecutive field goals to put Wisconsin up 20-0 and nailing three field goals to surpass his career total of two field goals made coming into the game.

After the Hoosiers held the Badgers without a touchdown for nearly 23 minutes, Wisconsin offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig decided to get creative with a jet-sweep hand off to senior wide receiver Jared Abbrederis who took it to the end zone on a 32-yard run for his first rushing touchdown of his career, putting Wisconsin up 27-0.

“It’s always fun to getting the ball on reverses, bubbles things like that,” Abbrederis said. “Whenever you get the ball in space you have to make something happen with it, so it’s fun doing it.”

Abbrederis would get his chance to run the ball again on a similar play call that saw two players sweeping in different directions for the Badgers. This time the senior receiver would run for a 49-yard touchdown to give Wisconsin 37 points.

While the offense was taking care of business moving the ball, the Wisconsin defense was taming Indiana’s usually wild offense.

The Hoosiers’ best chance to find the end zone came midway through the third quarter with the ball on Wisconsin’s one-yard line, but Indiana’s second quarterback Tre Roberson was unable to get the play off in time over the noise of the crowd giving Indiana a delay of game penalty that would doom the drive to just a field goal.

“It was a big stand there. It was important for them to get the stop at that point,” Andersen said. “They take great pride in the three points that they gave up today against this offense is a tremendous accomplishment. That was a big time defensive stop.”

Three points would be all Indiana could muster as the Wisconsin defense continued to smother its opponent, snapping the Hoosiers’ record-streak of 10 games with at least 28 points.

With the game well in hand entering the fourth quarter, Andersen began to clear his bench, but that didn’t slow down the offensive attack with freshman running back Corey Clement taking the reins and rushing for 109 yards and two touchdowns.

Clement’s 100-yard effort in the fourth quarter pushed Wisconsin to 554 yards on the ground in 50 carries, which is good for an 11.1 average per rush.

Moving forward, Wisconsin gets ready for the border battle with Minnesota, giving Andersen his first taste of the battle for Paul Bunyan’s ax.

“It’s rivalry week,” Andersen said. “Here we go.”