[media-credit name=’DEREK MONTGOMERY/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]John Stocco and Owen Daniels are pretty close.

Since their days as backup quarterbacks behind Brooks Bollinger and Jim Sorgi, Stocco and Daniels have spent a good amount of time together both on and off the field. Daniels, now a tight end, serves as one of Stocco's biggest supporters as well as a security blanket of sorts on the turf.

"It's supposed to help," Daniels laughed, this past spring, when asked if their friendship helped him get a few more chances during games.

But, all joking aside, in Wisconsin's 65-0 defeat of Temple Saturday, that relationship paid huge dividends for the duo.

With Temple trusting the job of covering Daniels to its linebacker corps, the senior slashed through the Owl defense, setting career marks with six catches for 88 yards and three touchdowns.

"Many times they were trying to run with a linebacker on [Daniels], which is very difficult if you're asking a linebacker to play run support and also play the tight end, so we felt we could take advantage of that," head coach Barry Alvarez said. "Owen did a nice job of running after he caught the ball."

Temple's inability to adjust to the Wisconsin offense was also a key to Daniels' success. After scoring his first touchdown to give Wisconsin a 10-0 lead on a bench route, UW ran a small variation of the same play on Daniels' next scoring opportunity, an 11-yard pass from Stocco that put the Badgers up 24-0.

"Obviously I like having OD (Owen Daniels) out there," Stocco said. "He is a heck of a player for us. A couple of the routes we ran we knew were going to be open and they happened to be in the red zone."

Though he only played just under two quarters, Stocco set a career mark of his own with his three touchdown passes to Daniels, the most of his career. For the game, Stocco finished 12-for-19 with 180 yards.

"John has practiced very well," Alvarez said. "He has thrown the ball extremely well in practice. You always like to see it carried over into the game and that's exactly what I saw today and what I was expecting to see."

Stocco's day ended after his third touchdown toss to Daniels gave the Badgers a 37-0 advantage with 6:32 left in the first half, giving backup Tyler Donovan a chance to see the most extensive game experience of his career.

"It's been a while since I have been out there really competing in a game and managing a game and it felt good to get back out there," Donovan said.

Though he only attempted six passes in the game, Donovan made the most of his opportunity. The sophomore rushed for 32 yards, including one touchdown, as well as completing three passes for 49 yards. The sophomore signal caller also tossed the first touchdown pass of his UW career, a 29-yard strike to wide receiver Marcus Randle El with just 14 seconds remaining in the first half to give UW a 51-0 advantage.

"I loved it," Donovan said. "It was a good route to Marcus Randle El and he just had the speed. It was a rush to have my first college career touchdown pass at Wisconsin."

Though the play may have been viewed as Wisconsin running up the score, Temple's head coach Bobby Wallace wasn't upset by the play call at all.

"I was not mad at all, that didn't bother me one bit," Wallace said. "I was in a game where we were up 42-0 at half, then ended up winning 49-42, so only being halftime, there was nothing wrong with what they did. Halftime is way too early for you to stop thinking about scoring."

"Barry Alvarez showed a lot of class playing all his guys in the third and fourth quarters," Wallace added.

After allowing 42 points against Bowling Green and enduring a week full of criticism, Wisconsin's defense responded to the challenge Saturday, shutting out the Owls. It was Wisconsin's first shutout since 1999, when UW blanked Indiana 59-0.

"I think we did improve. It felt good to shut their team out and it helped our confidence," defensive back Brett Bell said. "To allow zero points is hard, even last year when we had one of the best defenses in the country we didn't get a shut out. It's a hard thing to do."

Yet the Badgers are once again on guard against a letdown with their first road trip of the season on the horizon following the impressive victory over a weaker Owl team.

"We've got to keep going, got to stay consistent, and we know North Carolina will come with a better team than we've seen the past two weeks, so we've got to keep preparing and get ready for the next game," Daniels said.