[media-credit name=’AJ Maclean’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]EAST LANSING, Mich — Looking around the make-shift Michigan State press box, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out which faces belonged to travelers, weary from the five-hour-plus trek from Madison to East Lansing for the penultimate game of UW’s regular season.

As the disastrous game moved toward its final 49-14 resting point, it was as if a stupefying plague spread from one person to the next, in sequence, until the entire traveling press corps wore the same vacant expression.

But it wasn’t a look of disappointment, or anger, or frustration, or any of the other understandable feelings that would later invade Badger nation: it was a look of utter confusion. It was a look that said, “What on earth just happened?”

An understandable feeling — considering Saturday’s loss didn’t just have a different result than every other Wisconsin football game has since the Music City Bowl last season, but actually felt like it must have been played by a different team than the one that has dominated opposing offenses in each and every game of the 2004 season.

Until Saturday, Wisconsin had allowed an average of 9.1 points per game (first in the country), 87.3 rushing yards per game (sixth in the country) and 246.9 total yards per game (third in the country). Of the eight (read that again: eight!) touchdowns the Badgers had allowed in the 2004 season, only three had come on the ground.

The defensive line — widely considered one of the best units of any sort in the country — and the corps of linebackers — phenomenal for an inexperienced bunch and finally healthy with Reggie Cribbs back from injury — seemed beyond reproach.

But, as Fat Lip prophesizes, “You know the routine: when you winnin’, they’re grinnin’ // All up in your face like they was with you from the beginnin’ // But on the flip side, when you washed up like a riptide // Fools clown about how you slipped and let it slide.”

Those same units that just a few days ago seemed on another plain of existence have fallen back to earth — hard.

Missed tackles, lethargic penetration, poor communication and slow jumps off the line of scrimmage changed the UW front seven from one of the nation’s top assets, into the Badgers’ top liability.

“I haven’t seen that all year. Other than them blocking us well, and we took some bad angles to the ball and missed some tackles; the rest of it was there were some holes in there,” head coach Barry Alvarez said. “They blocked us. Their offensive line blocked us. We missed a lot of tackles.”

In one quarter of play, the Spartans had 123 yards on the ground against the Badgers — nearly 1.5 times as many as the Badgers have allowed per game. Well before the second half ground to a halt, MSU had surpassed Northwestern for the most rushing yardage (with 151 yards) any team had put up against Wisconsin.

“It might have been just their day. They came ready to play; they played a great game — it wasn’t just a fluke. They just outright beat us,” senior cornerback Scott Starks said. “I guess it was just a lack of communication on the field, missed tackles; we weren’t finishing, everything — everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.”

By the end of the game, UW had allowed 430 yards on the ground — just less than five times its season average and nearly 300 yards more than its worst game of the season — to a team that is averaging 200 yards less than that number in 2004.

MSU running back Jason Teague, who’s previous highlight-reel performance of the season came when he ran for 79 yards against Rutgers in week one, ran for 112 yards against UW; Jehuu Caulcrick, who had run for 449 yards on the season, with a best of 94 against Minnesota, ran for 146 against Wisconsin.

DeAndra Cobb and Damon Dowdell got in on the fun as well — both breaking the 70-yard barrier and averaging 15.6 and 24.0 yards per carry respectively.

“We were playing good all year, so for them to put up — what was it? — like 49 points, it’s embarrassing,” linebacker Dontez Sanders said. “I’m mad, I’m sick right now. What can you do?”

Unfortunately, there may not be a good answer to that question for the Badgers, who now find themselves lacking any semblance of confidence and in desperate BCS and Big Ten situations.

UW’s defense will soon find out that Fat Lips’ words of wisdom apply to the Bowl Championship Series, the Big Ten title and championship-hungry fans as well as they do everything else: “Full of dreams, determination, self esteem // But now it seems they hesitate to be on my team.”