[media-credit name=’BRYAN FAUST/Herald Photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]ANN ARBOR, Mich. — In the recent history of Wisconsin football, the Badgers have made it almost common practice to pull an upset or two early in the season, en route to a run at a Big Ten title.
Whether it was knocking off highly ranked Ohio State in 2003 and 2004, or bumping Michigan last season, UW has had a knack for starting off the Big Ten schedule with a bang.
All good things must come to an end.
Such an upset to begin the Big Ten slate wasn't meant to be in '06 as the Badgers began their conference season with more of a hollow thud, losing 27-13 to No. 6 Michigan in Ann Arbor Saturday.
While the game was tied 10-10 at the half, from then on out the Badger offense was powerless. Wisconsin was unable to move the ball and the Michigan special teams dominated Wisconsin's, sowing the seeds for a second-half thumping at the Big House, in front of an attendance of 111,058.
"Second half, we just fell apart," junior wideout Paul Hubbard said.
The Wisconsin (3-1, 0-1 Big Ten) defense was sterling again, keeping the burly, dangerous Wolverine attack in-check for much of the afternoon, allowing the Badgers to hang in with the No. 6 team in the country.
Meanwhile, the Badger offense sputtered, and simply picking up a first down appeared to be akin to climbing Mt. Everest, opening the second half with six straight three-and-outs.
"We were off the field too many times and our defense would go out there and they played hard, they got a lot of interceptions, got a lot of turnovers for us," said Hubbard, whose left arm was in a sling following the game with an apparent shoulder injury. "We just weren't able to capitalize."
Michigan (4-0, 1-0) controlled the field position battle all day long, eventually wearing down the Badgers, as UW started 12 drives at or inside the 20-yard line.
Meanwhile, Michigan punt returner Steve Breaston continually cut into the UW coverage to give the Wolverines a short field for a score, or at least set up another punt to pin the Badgers back deep.
"He's a great returner and when he gets that many touches, [his excelling] is bound to happen," punter Ken DeBauche said. "Myself and the coverage unit could've had a little something more to do to help [ourselves] out, but we didn't."
"They had us on field position all day," Langford said. "Basically our special teams, we've got to clear up these mistakes."
Even the Badger running game, the only consistently dominant aspect of the team over the first three games, was shut down as UW only totaled 12 yards on 27 attempts, a 0.4 yards per carry average.
"Our first goal was to run the ball with persistence and power and we weren't able to do that, especially in the second half," Bielema said.
The passing game, after a hot start, faltered in the second half, as UW went the entire third quarter without a completed pass, and by the time the passing game came around, it was too late.
"A lot of it was on us in the second half, things that we were just off on," Stocco said. "There's definitely some things that we need to correct on our side."
The game could not have started off any better for the Badgers, who looked like they were set to continue their trend of storybook beginnings to the season. With Michigan driving, having already picked up two first downs, cornerback Allen Langford snatched a bobbled pass by Mario Manningham out of the air for an interception.
The Badger offense then peaked, putting together a textbook 5-play, 60-yard scoring drive to take an early lead that lasted through the first quarter.
But from that point on, the Badgers' slow spiral into ineptitude began, and it seemed to be epitomized by the play of senior safety and return man Zach Hampton, who just had a day to forget.
With UW up 10-7, Hampton stood back deep ready to return a Michigan punt after the Badger defense had stopped the Wolverines cold again. The ball was snapped, and then suddenly it was not so much a football as it was a rocket coming off the foot of UM punter Zoltan Mesko. With the ball threatening to soar over the head of Wisconsin's senior punt returner, Hampton scurried backwards, and as he caught up with the ball, he stretched out his hands but couldn't get a handle on the punt, dropping it to the turf.
"I wasn't deep enough, I guess for the wind," a despondent Hampton said afterward. "I just took my eyes off it at the last second. Basically that's what happened."
Instead of diving on the ball, Hampton tried to pick it up and run with it, but couldn't reel it in on his first attempt. Michigan's Darnell Hood then made sure he didn't get a second chance, leveling Hampton and allowing the Wolverine long snapper of all people to gobble up the ball, giving Michigan outstanding field position.
"I should've probably just fell on it, but I tried picking it up," Hampton said. "You can't make mistakes. Today there were a few mental lapses by myself and teammates. Playing a big team like this we have to be on point, we have to be on our assignments."
The defense stiffened, and Wisconsin even had an opportunity to regain the lead heading into halftime, but couldn't quite get within kicker Taylor Mehlhaff's range.
"If we'd have gotten about seven or eight more yards we would have been able to kick a field goal right before the end of the first half, which would've been huge," Bielema said. "We weren't able to capitalize on that either."
Hampton's rough day didn't end there as he was flagged for a personal foul penalty on a punt that would've given UW a rare field position advantage (Hampton later called the flag "very questionable") and later he was also the out of position safety on Manningham's second touchdown reception of the game, which would be the death knell for UW.
"I thought the safety was over the top, bailing me out, but he wasn't over there, so that put both of us in a bad situation," Langford said.
Bielema and his staff have been harping on the 1-0 philosophy all year, but this week will look to another mantra, not letting one loss turn into two as UW turns its focus to Indiana.
"I'm putting it on our seniors, myself included," senior safety Joe Stellmacher said. "If we prepare this week as hard as we prepared [last] week for Michigan, we'll be just fine."
"We can't let [this] beat us twice," Stocco said.