Wisconsin will get gauge of strength against Purdue

The unbeaten teams collide in West Lafayette, Ind. on Saturday.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Coach Barry Alvarez didn't want to call Saturday's game with No. 5 Purdue a measuring stick for his 10th-ranked Wisconsin Badgers.
But he couldn't find any other way to put it.
"This is the best team by far that we've played," Alvarez said Monday.
"And you got the leading contender for the Heisman Trophy [quarterback Kyle Orton] running their offense, and a very effective offense, and a defense that's probably the biggest surprise with their team."
Latest victories
The Boilermakers (5-0) are coming off a 20-13 victory over Penn State. The Badgers (6-0) rallied from a 10-0 deficit to beat Ohio State 24-13 in Columbus Saturday.
Orton has passed for 18 touchdowns, 11 of them to Taylor Stubblefield.
Alvarez said the 6-foot-4, 226-pound Orton is especially impressive because of his awareness.
"He knows where he's going with the ball," he said. "As you watch film after a while you know where he's going to go with the ball, but you see about everything tried against him, and quite frankly, you're not going to trick him into anything."
His team's defense should be well-equipped to go against Orton, he said.
"If we continue as we have, the one thing we've really been able to do is pressure quarterbacks without blitzing," Alvarez said.
Compliment for Stocco
He said he was encouraged at the way his own starting quarterback, John Stocco, handled the pressure of playing the Buckeyes on the road and guiding the team to the come-from-behind victory.
"He did all the things that you had to do to win," he said. "So I thought it was a huge step for him."
Before facing one of the nation's top teams, the Badgers will face a long bus ride to West Lafayette instead of going by charter airplane.
Alvarez said the bus travel is required under a rule set by the Big Ten as a cost-containment measure.
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