EAST LANSING, Mich. -- They do football the old-fashioned way at Wisconsin. Remember huddles? Remember fullbacks? Old-fashioned might be too newfangled a descriptive for this offense.

"Archaic," head coach Paul Chryst said after his No. 11 Badgers humiliated No. 8 Michigan State 30-6 in both teams' Big Ten Conference opener.

The Badgers don't flip the ball to the official and run back to the line of scrimmage. They huddle until the 40-second clock has done half its work. They walk back to the line. Then they move the chains.

In four games, their longest gain is 47 yards. They have one run of more than 35 yards. But they hold the ball for 37 minutes per game. They have 12 scoring drives of at least eight plays. In a fast-food world, the Badgers chew their opponents slowly before they swallow them.

Leo Musso's 66-yard pick-six was longer than any play by the Wisconsin offense all season. Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via USA TODAY Sports

"It's pretty straightforward," senior running back Corey Clement said. "There's not a lot of twists and turns in this offense. Defenses know what we're going to do, and that makes it that much better when you can execute on a higher level."

The truth is the Spartans played stingy defense Saturday. They held the Badgers to 317 total yards. What they didn't do was rattle redshirt freshman Alex Hornibrook. Making his first start on the road against the defending league champion, Hornibrook completed 16 of 26 passes for 195 yards with one touchdown and one interception.

In the end, how the Michigan State defense played didn't matter because the Spartans' offense and special teams proved generous to a fault. Wisconsin free safety Leo Musso returned a fumble by Michigan State tailback LJ Scott 66 yards for a touchdown. Spartans punter Jake Hartbarger mishandled a snap at his 5-yard line, and the Badgers needed one play to score a touchdown.

But there was also the first of Michigan State quarterback Tyler O'Connor's three interceptions, midway through the second quarter, which Badgers corner Sojourn Shelton returned 8 yards to the Spartans' 28. The resulting touchdown drive describes the Wisconsin offense quite well. The Badgers went 28 yards in six plays and needed 2:40 to do so.

By comparison, in No. 3 Louisville's first three games, the Cardinals scored 19 of their 26 touchdowns in less time. Wisconsin might not quite be a team for leather helmets, but the Badgers, like No. 4 Michigan, their next opponent, and No. 7 Stanford, play a brand of football that would be recognizable to Bo Schembechler or John McKay or any other time traveler with a whistle around his neck.

Wisconsin junior wide receiver Jazz Peavy grew up watching Wisconsin football. The school is the only place he ever wanted to play. He understands the appeal of the hurry-up spread offense.

"It's very fun to watch, exciting to watch," Peavy said. "Those are teams that go, go, go, always pass, pass, pass. It's always exciting. But I love what I do here. This has got to be exciting to watch. Hard-nosed football, get your hands in the ground and go to work."

Enjoyable, yes. Exciting? If you say so, Jazz. The truth is, grinding it out is as much a part of the Wisconsin identity as cheese curds and the bubbler (what the rest of us call a water fountain). When Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez resurrected the Badgers program from the dead in 1990, he said, "Our hearts and minds will come from Wisconsin, but our hands and feet better come from somewhere else."

That's why the Badgers don't spread the field.

"Where are we going to get skilled guys to do that?" Alvarez asked Saturday. "We can get big linemen. That's what we can get. So you gotta start with the running game. You're going down to Florida and all these places, you're getting seconds. I'll tell you, if [the spread is] what you run, and you've got to prepare to play us, it's hard. How do you prepare? Because [we're] so physical."

The Badgers find guys such as junior left tackle Ryan Ramczyk, who went to a technical college for one season, played two years at Division III Wisconsin-Stevens Point and, after a redshirt season, is protecting his quarterback's blind side.

"I think it fits the players that we get," said Chryst, who coached eight seasons for Alvarez and Bret Bielema in Madison. "I suppose once you get going, you look for those players. But it fits Wisconsin. There's a formula, and it isn't the only one. But it does fit Wisconsin."

This game had been billed as the first portion of a five-game marathon. Wisconsin plays at fourth-ranked Michigan next week and then, after a week off, plays No. 2 Ohio State, at Iowa and No. 20 Nebraska. Realists who predicted the Badgers would go 2-3 are changing their predictions. Suddenly, Wisconsin's future doesn't look as ominous as what Michigan State is facing.

Since taking a 36-7 lead in the third quarter last week at Notre Dame, the Spartans have been outscored 51-6. If you ignore the season-opening victory over FCS Furman, Michigan State's game before that was the 38-0 playoff semifinal loss to Alabama last season.

Wisconsin might be archaic, but the Badgers just made the Big Ten race a lot more interesting.