Fans from both Penn State and the University of Wisconsin were on their best behavior before Saturday night's showdown at Camp Randall Stadium.

In fact, one fan who drove all the way to Madison from Pennsylvania gave me the shirt off his back.  

Really.

I was assigned to look into whether Badger fans still act like what a scolding editorial in our competitor's paper dubbed "drunken louts." What better way to do that than to be an undercover Penn State fan myself?

I headed down to State Street to look for a blue and white Penn State t-shirt. Dumb. I found none, of course, just plenty of bright red sweatshirts, T-shirts, beer mugs, slippers, shorts, boxers — you name it.

But I did find Dr. Aaron Roan, a dentist visiting from Pennsylvania who graduated from Penn State in 2001. He took off his blue Penn State polo shirt and gave me the gray Penn State T-shirt underneath. For free. "I'm happy to make a donation to a Madison fan," he said.

The next day I began my top-secret investigation. I started by walking down Regent Street, which one Purdue supporter once called a "nightmare."  

On my way there, I passed plenty of drinking parties hosted by plenty of students in red. Braced for abuse, instead I heard invitations.

A group of friendly young women asked me to join them in a drinking game called tip the cup ... or was it slip the cup? I still don't quite understand what the whole point was, but it had something to do with drinking the beer in a paper cup as quickly as you could and then flipping the cup upside down with one hand motion. Cool.

About halfway down the block my friend and I got yelled at again. "Hey, Penn State! Come on over!" This time it was a group of guys who invited us to join in on a keg stand. It would have entailed being dangled upside down while drinking from a keg. They were disappointed when we declined, but perfectly friendly.

As we walked closer to Regent Street, the crowds got thicker and the noise louder. Dan Beardmore, 21, yelled at us as we went past. His friend, Corey Lee, was wearing a red shirt that said "F— 'Em Bucky," but there was no need to be nervous. "Good luck Lions!" Beardmore yelled.

It turns out that part of the reason he was being so nice, he said, is that last summer he had gone to something called a Big Ten Sportsmanship Conference in Columbus, Ohio, that was sponsored by Ohio State and attended by representatives from nine of the 11 Big Ten schools. The main point was to improve obnoxious fan behavior and sportsmanship at the games.

"We want to make everybody feel welcome," said Sarah Zipperle, another UW student who attended the Sportsmanship Conference and who was standing outside the stadium in a bright green "fan ambassador" vest handing out goodies to visitors, like directions and a coupon for free licorice.

Several UW students said they had received e-mails from the administration prior to Saturday's game warning them to behave themselves. "We were told to wear red on game day and to treat visitors like rivals and not enemies," said Sara Loevinger, a freshman who was hanging out with a group playing beer pong, a game that involves ping pong and beer.

Mike Wilkinson, the former UW basketball star who grew up on a farm in Blue Mounds, was there, too. He was home for a visit because he hurt his knee while playing for a team in Russia.

Wilkinson said that the fans in Europe are much more aggressive than Badgers fans. He's had eggs thrown at him in Athens, he said, as well as hot coins that fans had heated up in lighters. Angry fans from an opposing team even burned up a teammate's car in Italy, he said.

Wilkinson summed up the experience succinctly: "It's crazy over there."

Wilkinson's wife, Alexis Schrubbe, said that University of Michigan fans are also crazier than Badger fans.

When she was dating Wilkinson, she was a member of the UW Marching Band and would often sing the National Anthem at his games and got a lot of face time on TV. In response, she got hate mail.

"People from Michigan State tracked me down and called my home and my house mother and threatened to kill me," she said.

For much of the evening, Wisconsin fans seemed much more excited about drinking than about the game. And with good reason, as it turned out, because Penn State walloped the Badgers 48-7, marking the worst loss for UW in 19 years.

Even the visiting fans were surprised. "These are by far the nicest fans we've seen," said Matthew M. Phillips, chairman of a financial recovery company from Florida and 1992 graduate of Penn State. "We're shocked, actually, at how nice they've been."

"They've been ridiculously nice," agreed Rob Cappella, who graduated from Penn State in 2002.

Cappella said fans in Madison were "a little more aggressive" two years ago when he attended a Nittany Lions game at Camp Randall. His theory for the change: On the heels of losses to Michigan and Ohio State for an 0-2 start in Big Ten play, the local fans were dispirited.

"Badger fans are pretty disheartened now," he said, "a little down."

About the rowdiest things got were right in front of a house on Breese Terrace, directly across from the stadium, where the featured attraction was a three-story beer bong.

On the balcony, beer was being poured down a tube into the mouth of a girl named Lindley Janowski, 22. When I stopped to stare, wearing my Penn State T-shirt, a young blond woman — who had seconds earlier been shouting obscenities at passing Penn State fans, but with a smile — said, "You guys are not used to this! You guys are not used to this!" Her pride was evident.

Everybody seemed in a good mood. Several times clumps of Penn State fans would walk past in blue and white T-shirts or face paint and then some of the people in red shirts on the sidewalks would thrust their fists into the air and yell "F— Penn State! F— Penn State!"

But they had grins on their faces, too.

That same obscene cheer would periodically run through the stands at the stadium, too, starting softly and then turning into a deafening chant.

A policewoman sitting outside Gate 5 on her horse said that several times that evening she had "waded in there" and warned the chanting crowds that if she heard another "peep" out of them they would be kicked out of the stadium. That seemed to do the trick, she said.

"We're really trying to push having a better atmosphere for visiting people," she said.

Penn State fan Rick Soden was sitting on a wall watching the crowds with his son, Aaron. They had arrived in Madison after a 1,000-mile drive on Thursday, and found everybody perfectly friendly, he said.

So far, at least.

"We'll have to see how they treat us after the game," he said.