After an impressive showing this past Saturday in which the Badgers dominated the West Virginia Mountaineers, the 3-0 Badgers will face the 0-2 Northern Illinois Huskies. On paper it doesn’t look like much of a matchup, but coaches are refusing to take their small-school opponents too lightly.
NIU has an enrollment of approximately 15,000 students compared to the approximately 40,000 students that attend the University of Wisconsin.
“I think that NIU is a good football team. For one, we’ve played teams in [the MAC] before, and they’re always prepared to play, and they’re challenging football teams. These guys have shown in the past that they are good,” said UW quarterback Brooks Bollinger. “I haven’t seen a bunch of film or anything on them but I know their secondary is pretty highly touted. The main thing is we have to worry about us getting better.”
Avoiding becoming the victim of an upset is something that Barry Alvarez doesn’t take lightly. Alvarez’s all-time record against MAC opponents is 20-2, and the Badgers are 16-1 in their last 17 non-conference home games. The letdown is something Alvarez wants his 3-0 Badgers to avoid.
“It has to do with turnovers and mistakes that you make during the game,” said Alvarez. If taking care of the ball is the key to success against NIU, the Badgers should be in good shape, since they are doing an outstanding job of protecting the football. UW has only two turnovers in the 2002 season, and they both came in the season opener against Fresno State.
Defensively the Badgers have tallied 10 turnovers in their first three games of the young season. The Badgers are on pace to destroy their takeaway mark from last year in which they only registered 21 turnovers throughout the entire season.
“You have to treat everyone the same; you have to respect every team you play against,” said UW linebacker Alex Lewis about this Saturday’s game against NIU. “This is the Divison-1 level, so every team has the potential to beat you.”
Northern Illinois marks the softest point left on the Badgers schedule. Wisconsin has two home games remaining against non-conference opponents before opening Big Ten action against Penn State October 5. Wisconsin players will be ready for a battle from NIU, a team that already played the underdog roll to perfection in a 42-41 upset against Wake Forest in their opener.
“They’re going to come as hard as they can,” said UW safety Ryan Aiello. “I would be disappointed if they didn’t.”
Northern Illinois head coach Joe Novak was previously an assistant at Indiana, so he is familiar with the madness that comes with playing at Camp Randall stadium in front of 75,000 energetic Badger fans.
“(Novak) is very well thought of in our profession. When you watch his teams play, you see a team that is coached well, fundamentally they are very good,” said Alvarez. “They play hard, and they don’t beat themselves.”
Coach Novak’s previous coaching experience in the Big Ten will help him prepare his team for the battle that awaits his Huskies at Camp Randall Saturday.
After the victory over West Virginia, Wisconsin moved to 18th in this week’s ESPN/USA Today coach’s poll and is 22nd in this week’s Associated Press poll.
“We certainly aren’t good enough to be overconfident against anyone. We’ve played well in spurts, but we haven’t played a four-quarter game yet,” said Alvarez. “We’re going to have to play hard, and fundamentally we’re going to have to be better this week than we have been.”
