Tom's Takes returns after taking the bye week off and looks back on the University of Wisconsin football team's nearly flawless -- or so we thought -- 37-0 victory over Purdue on Saturday.

1, FINDING NITS TO PICK: Anybody who gets too carried away with the Badgers' most dominating Big Ten Conference performance in several years should report directly to offensive line coach Bob Bostad. I should preface this by saying, Bostad has been a little extra intense -- even by his standards -- all season. He has never been one for small talk. He'll usually give decent answers to decent questions, but he has been a busy guy all season, dealing with all the issues that have hit the offensive line from day one, with the pre-camp injuries to John Moffitt and Bill Nagy.

So, having survived all that, I thought Bostad might relax a bit after the Badgers' offensive line basically pushed Purdue's defense around Camp Randall Stadium from the opening drive. Not so. Here's a transcript from part of our conversation on Sunday:

Me: Was this your group's best overall performance yesterday?

Him: It was OK.

Me: Just OK? What makes you say that? From the outside it looked pretty good.

Him: I think we can get a lot better.

Me: Specific areas? Anything?

Him: Uh ... you know, obviously protection. Just the little things you've always got to work on and some things you think you've gotten better at. Then you look back and say, `We've got to get better at that.' Not that you ever stop working on those things. No one ever masters anything, I don't think. I just thought it could have been cleaner."

Me: Do you see signs of cohesion, now that guys have had more time together? Does that take time to develop?

Him: Yeah, I think we're way past the point of even worrying about that -- just the word 'cohesion' now or (any other) excuse.

2, GAINING EXPERIENCE: Offensive coordinator Paul Chryst had some fun with redshirt freshman quarterback Curt Phillips, who missed a chance at a 96-yard touchdown pass with a little more than 2 minutes to play.

The Badgers faced a third-and-9 from their own 4-yard line. Phillips had David Gilreath wide open for what looked like a sure touchdown. I'm not really sure what happened next. I was down on the field at the time, getting ready to go to the post-game interview area, so I didn't get a good look at it. I also haven't seen the television replay. But the ball seemed to squirt sideways out of Phillips' hand. (I also didn't get a chance to ask him about it in the post-game interviews.)

"I thought he absolutey choked on the last pass," Chryst said with a smile. "I told him, `Don't worry, you'll get another 95-yard touchdown.' "

When Chryst was asked what happened on the throw, he said, "You're going to ask him."

On a more serious note, Chryst was unhappy with the backup offense settling for a field goal after taking over on the Purdue 20-yard line after Chris Borland forced and recovered a fumble.

"To be first-and-goal (at the 9-yard line) and not punch it in, I don't care who's in there," Chryst said. "Those guys have to know that. What if Scotty (Tolzien) goes down and Curt is playing?"

Chryst didn't think Phillips made good decisions on a couple runs after first-and-goal. "I thought he misread them," Chryst said.

Yet, Chryst was happy with a conversion from Phillips to Gilreath of 13 yards on third-and-8, as well as a 9-yard pass to Kraig Appleton on third-and-10 that allowed the Badgers to convert a fourth-and-1 on a 2-yard run by Montee Ball.

Those are three freshmen -- Phillips, Appleton and Ball -- who all got some really good work in the game.

"You'd like to say all the reps are the same," Chryst said. "But those game reps are probably really good for them."

3, LOSING THE ARMS RACE: One guy who couldn't hide his satisfaction on Sunday was defensive coordinator Dave Doeren -- and rightly so. The Badgers posted their first shutout in Big Ten play in 10 years.

One thing that seemed to bug Doeren a little bit is that some people think Purdue helped out singificantly with about six dropped passes.

Granted, the Boilermakers did not look sharp on offense. Purdue's Joey Elliott came in ranked second in the conference in passing yards, averaging 252.8 yards per game. But if that's one of the Big Ten's best at the position, it might be an example of how the conference has fallen behind in the arms race going on elsewhere in college football.

Elliott ended up completing 5-of-23 passes, with an intereception, for 59 yards.

But Doeren likes to think the Badgers' secondary had a lot to do with that.

"I was really proud of how they played in the secondary," Doeren said. "It's never their fault or anyone else's. We demand that each position group holds up (its) end and wanted to challenge those guys (cornerbacks) going into the bye week. They responded with a great performance.

"People talk about Purdue dropping balls and this and that, well, we were re-routing them (receivers) and contending them (passes) and in the face of the quarterback, too. Some of that was manifested by how we were playing and some of it was their lack of concentration. It was very fun to watch."

4, WILD AND WOOLLY: Say what you want about the Big Ten not having any great teams this year. But when a team is able to withstand its quarterback throwing five interceptions, and rally from a 14-point deficit in the third quarter, you know this has to be its year. That would be Iowa, of course, which stayed perfect at 9-0 following another improbable victory -- this one 42-24 over Indiana. I can't imagine a team being more gutted this morning than Indiana, which blew a 25-point lead in a loss to Northwestern the previous week, then allowed the Hawkeyes to score 28 points in the fourth quarter. It makes you wonder how much the Hoosiers will have left when they play host to the Badgers on Saturday.

As wild as that game was, did anybody see Illinois beating Michigan 38-13? Or Minnesota losing wide receiver Eric Decker last week, then committing 17 penalties against Michigan State -- and winning 42-34? All quarterback Adam Weber did was throw for 416 yards and five TDs.

So, while it's easy to look at UW's remaing schedule -- at Indiana, Michigan, at Northwestern and at Hawaii -- and predict a 10-2 finish, please be advised: these are strange days, indeed, in the Big Ten and it's impossible to predict what the future will bring.

5, DOEREN'S DEFENSE: For most of last season, many Badgers fans wondered openly if head coach Bret Bielema got rid of the wrong defensive coordinator following the 2007 season.

The Badgers struggled on defense at times last season in Doeren's first year as coordinator, after the firing of Mike Hankwitz, who was UW's defensive coordinator in 2006 and 2007. It didn't help that Hankwitz helped turn Northwestern's defense around last season.

Well, you don't hear as much grumbling about Doeren these days. The Big Ten's Web site had not updated the conference statistics as of this writing, but I'm guessing the Badgers' defense is going to look pretty good in several categories after blanking Purdue.

The truth of the matter is, Hankwitz is a highly respected veteran coach. It's not surprising he has done a nice job in Evanston, Ill. Doeren came in with the label of a bright, young coach, who also happens to be an outstanding recruiter.

But these days, nobody gets a chance to learn or grow on the job. Fans expect results. Now.

I will never understand how quickly fans call for coordinators to be fired. Predictably, I heard from a few irate fans about Chryst following the loss to Iowa.

If these fans had their way, teams would go through three or four coorindators in a year. There's only one thing more predictable than fans calling for coordinators to be fired after a lousy performance: That's the silence from those same fans when things go well.

It's too soon to annoint Doeren as a great defensive coordinator. Just like it was premature last year to call him a failure.

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