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MADISON, Wisconsin (Ticker) -- Ron Dayne began his season march to history by running for 135 yards and three touchdwon as 10th-ranked Wisconsin hammered Division I-AA opponent Murray State, 49-10. Dayne, a senior, rushed 20 times playing only the first half and climbed five spots to move into 14th place on the NCAA career rushing list with 4,693 career yards. Ricky Williams, last season's Heisman Trophy winner, is the all-time rushing leader with 6,279 yards. "It's just gut feeling, just common sense," said Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez about when to pull Dayne out of the game. "There was no reason to put Ron back in there in the second half. I felt that would have been humiliating to Ron and to Murray State at that point." The 5-10, 248-pound Dayne opened the scoring with a three-yard plunge just 3:38 into the contest. Dayne broke through the middle for a 15-yard score 3:15 later, giving Wisconsin (1-0) a 14-0 advantage. Dayne's last TD came on a 14-yard run and gave the Badgers a 35-7 bulge 3:10 before halftime. Wisconsin improved to 20-4 when Dayne rushes for 100 yards. "I was really pleased with a lot of our game," Alvarez said. "One of our emphases all week was to start fast, not to feel our way around the game and spare your way around for a quarter, but to come out and set the tempo. We did that." Scott Kavanagh completed 8-of-12 passes for 102 yards for Wisconsin, which has won three of its last four season openers. Brooks Bollinger was 3-of-7 for 37 yards, including a six-yard TD pass to Marcus Carpenter that gave the Badgers a 49-7 cushion with 81 seconds remaining in the third quarter. "I thought they played very well," Alvarez said about Kavanagh and Bollinger. "Scott was very crisp. It's hard to judge the second half with Brooks because all we did was hand off. But I thought for his first time out he did some good things, too. I was pleased with the quarterbacks play." Shadrach Jackson had a 66-yard TD run after Dayne's second score for Murray State (0-1), which is ranked 22nd in the ESPN/USA Today Division I-AA Top 25 college football coaches' poll. Greg Miller kicked a 45-yard field goal for the Racers' other score with 2:50 left in the game. "I told my team in the dressing room that we might have been able to help them a little more as coaches had we made a different game plan," said Murray State coach Denver Johnson. "We talked about it as coaches several weeks ago. Do you try and win a game like this or do you come and just try and keep it close? We just decided it was below our character as a coaching staff and below the dignity of our program to make that kind of game plan. We came up here intending to win this football game. We coached that way." Wisconsin backup running backs Michael Bennett and Matt Unertl combined for 82 yards on 19 carries. Unertl's two-yard run capped a 13-play, 80-yard drive and gave the Badgers a 21-7 lead with 7:01 left in the first quarter. Nick Davis returned a punt 76 yards for a score to make it 28-7 less than two minutes into the second quarter. Eddie Faulkner, who carried six times for 32 yards, had a six-yard run 32 seconds before halftime to make it 42-7. This was the first meeting between the schools.
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