Published: September 07, 2008 11:09 pm         

Air Badgers? No. 10 Wisconsin passes past Thundering Herd

MADISON, Wis. — As it turns out, No. 10 Wisconsin knows how to throw the ball after all.

One week after new starting quarterback Allan Evridge threw only 10 passes — one of which was intercepted, another of which should have been — in a victory over Akron, Evridge threw for 308 yards and a touchdown in the Badgers’ 51-14 victory over Marshall Saturday.

The Badgers couldn’t get their trademark running game going early, and were shocked to fall behind by two touchdowns. So they turned to Evridge, who used big passing plays to jump-start the offense for 51 straight points.

“Everybody thinks last week we didn’t throw because we couldn’t,” Evridge said. “But we just ran the ball so well. We had a good plan, and we could have done the same last week as well but we chose not to.”

Evridge, a transfer from Kansas State who spent last season backing up Tyler Donovan, is under no illusions about Wisconsin’s offensive identity: Run, run, run.

“The most important thing to me is the win,” Evridge said. “I don’t really care how many yards it was as long as we get the ‘W.”’

But if the Badgers are to make a run at the Big Ten title and a BCS bowl game — against a schedule that gets remarkably tougher in a hurry, beginning with next Saturday’s game at Fresno State — they’re going to need Evridge to make plays when called upon.

Marshall’s game plan going into Saturday was based on making him prove that he could.

“We wanted to see if he could throw the football, and he did,” Marshall coach Mark Snyder said.

The Thundering Herd stopped Wisconsin’s running game cold after the Badgers piled up 404 yards rushing against Akron. Marshall held Wisconsin to 25 yards of total offense — all on the ground — and one first down in the first quarter.

“We kind of expect out of ourselves to always run the football,” Badgers center John Moffitt said. “I don’t think that happened as well as we wanted it today.”

Marshall found themselves up 14-0 early in the second quarter, but Marshall safety C.J. Spillman said the defense tried to stay grounded.

“From a defensive standpoint, we tried to tell our guys to stay humble,” Spillman said. “Don’t try to get too high because we’re up by 14 points and they haven’t scored anything. We tried to keep the guys humble so the big plays didn’t happen.”

And they did — until Wisconsin went to the air.

“They were exactly what we expected them to be,” Marshall defensive end Ian Hoskins said. “They did what we practiced against. Nothing was new. The coaches did a terrific job of preparing us for what would happen. They mixed in a few passes that we weren’t expecting. Wisconsin, who figures? But they played their game and they beat us.”

Wisconsin appeared to be in big trouble after running back John Clay barely recovered his own fumble after the Badgers fell behind 14-0. But Evridge completed a 36-yard pass to Lance Kendricks, setting up a 2-yard touchdown run by P.J. Hill.

Long passes from Evridge helped set up two more Wisconsin scores, a 45-yard field goal by Philip Welch and 3-yard touchdown run by Zach Brown to put the Badgers ahead by three at halftime. Marshall then unraveled by throwing three straight interceptions to begin the second half.

Spillman said Marshall let Wisconsin’s tight ends get away from them.

“They made a lot of catches they shouldn’t have made,” Spillman said. “We didn’t make the adjustments we needed to make. They got us turned around.”

Wisconsin finished the game with only 158 net yards rushing — including only 57 by Hill, who had 210 yards in a victory over Akron. But thanks to Evridge, it didn’t matter.

“We stopped the run,” said Snyder, a former assistant in the Big Ten. “I’ve played Wisconsin a whole bunch and would have been happy with that rush total. Obviously they beat us throwing the football. And we didn’t help ourselves by turning the ball over. There’s the story of the game.”