Ohio State's Joe Cooper dances in celebration after sacking Wisconsin QB Brooks Bollinger.(AP)

"I had no clue how it happened," linebacker Nick Greisen said. "He got out of there. I looked up and I had the shoe and he was gone."

The No. 24 Badgers (3-3), whose season of national championship aspirations began to unravel last month when the NCAA suspended 26 players for receiving unadvertised shoe discounts, fell to 0-3 in the Big Ten for the first time since 1996.

The Buckeyes (5-0, 2-0) had 14 tackles for loss, including nine sacks, in avenging last year's 42-17 loss at Columbus that sent them spiraling toward their worst season in 12 years.

About 20 Buckeyes danced on the Badgers' "W" at midfield when it was over.

"We put a whooping on them," said Nate Clements, Ohio State's star cornerback and trash-talker.

Receiver Ken-Yon Rambo suggested the beating could have been worse, too.

"We didn't pound them like we should have," insisted Rambo, who caught five passes for 97 yards. "The coaches wanted us to back off and get conservative and just get the win. But we could have made it worse."

The Badgers have hit rock bottom as it is.

The two-time defending Rose Bowl champions started off the year ranked fourth and needed fourth-quarter comebacks in all three of their non-league games before losing to Northwestern, Michigan and Ohio State.

Combs, who played sparingly in the second half after he turned his right ankle, got things going with an 80-yard dash for the end zone when he slipped two tackles at the line in the first quarter.

His right shoe was ripped away as he emerged from the pile and he darted the last 78 yards without it.

"I just stepped out and it was gone," Combs said.

So was he.

And nobody even got a hand on him on his second TD run, when he followed a block by fullback Jamar Martin for a 21-yard score that made it 13-0.

The Buckeyes were driving again in Badgers' territory on their third possession when Jamar Fletcher tied a school record with his 18th career interception, stopping Ohio State at the Wisconsin 33.

But the Badgers, behind struggling sophomore quarterback Brooks Bollinger, punted on their first five possessions. On their sixth, Clements picked off Bollinger at the Buckeyes' 12.

"His interception was questionable," Clements said of Fletcher's pickoff. "Mine was a hell of a play."

Late in the first half, Ohio State's Tim Cheatwood blocked Vitaly Pisetsky's 52-yard field-goal attempt and the Badgers inexplicably began walking off the field. Clements picked up the live ball and darted 25 yards before being brought down at his own 39.

Quarterback Steve Bellisari then reeled off a 30-yard run on first down in which Combs sprained his ankle. That set up his 20-yard TD pass to Darnell Sanders on a great fake handoff that made it 20-0 at halftime.

"I didn't think we would start slow. I have to take fault for that," Badgers coach Barry Alvarez said. "That's my job to get the kids ready to play. Obviously, we started very slow and put ourselves in a hole. Why, I don't know."

Michael Bennett bounced off the pile and darted 35 yards for a touchdown on fourth-and-1 to pull Wisconsin to 20-7 in the third quarter.

Bennett, the nation's leading rusher, carried 20 times for 106 yards, 102 yards shy of his average. He needed 60 more yards to become the ninth rusher in NCAA history to reach 1,000 by his fifth game.

Dan Stultz, who missed an extra point in the first half and had trouble punting in the swirling winds at Camp Randall Stadium, made it 23-7 with a 24-yard field goal with 2:32 left in the third quarter.

Bollinger drove the Badgers into Ohio State territory again, but Matt Wilhelm recovered one of Bollinger's three fumbles at the Buckeyes' 25.

The Badgers lost two starters to sprained right knees, star defensive end John Favret and center Al Johnson, and their leading tackler, safety Jason Doering, got a concussion.

"We've got to regroup with the guys that are healthy," Alvarez said. "We've got to patch things up and continue to get better. We've got to try to salvage things and see if we can get ourselves in a bowl game some place."