[media-credit name=’DEREK MONTGOMERY/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Wisconsin's defense must be experiencing a major case of déjàvu while preparing for this weekend's Big Ten road opener.

In the Northwestern Wildcats, the Badgers will see a team that likes to line up in a spread offense and sling the ball all over the field. Sounds similar to last Saturday, when Wisconsin faced an Indiana offense that threw the ball to six different receivers.

"It helps, two weeks in a row," linebacker Mark Zalewski said. "It helps from one week to the next, having an offense that runs the same personnel and has a lot of the same formations."

Not surprisingly, there's a reason for the similarities. Indiana head coach Terry Hoeppner came to the Hoosiers from Miami of Ohio, where he served as offensive coordinator under Northwestern head coach Randy Walker prior to taking the head coaching reigns.

The Badgers will be looking to carry over the lessons learned against the Hoosiers, who, in their first year running this version of the spread attack, are relative novices when compared to the Wildcats, a team that has been using the offense for seven years and features a fourth-year starter at quarterback in Brett Basanez. UW redshirt freshman cornerback Allen Langford says the biggest key to defending the Northwestern scheme will be communication.

"You go out there and communicate, you know exactly what you're doing, where to line up at, then you can slow that down," Langford said. "Because, obviously you don't know too much of what they're going to do, whether they're going to run or pass because of the way they spread you out. So you have to communicate and just be very disciplined."

Injury update: Head coach Barry Alvarez had no update on the health of standout fullback Matt Bernstein or tight end Owen Daniels. Bernstein missed last week's game entirely, while Daniels left the contest after the first play from scrimmage with an ankle injury.

"Nothing has changed with Bernstein," Alvarez said. "It'll be a little while with Bernie. [I] haven't seen or heard an update on Owen."

In Bernstein's stead, sophomore Chris Pressley played the majority of the snaps at fullback until he too missed time. Redshirt freshman Bill Rentmeester replaced Pressley, but Alvarez said the sophomore should be ready to go again.

"Pressley's [injury] wasn't as bad as it was believed to be," Alvarez said. "I think he should be okay."

Junior strong safety Joe Stellmacher also missed time after suffering a stinger two weeks ago against Michigan. Johnny White played solid in Stellmacher's place, but the coaching staff is hoping to have the hard-nosed Berlin, Wis., native back.

"There's a chance for Stellmacher this week," Alvarez said. "He has been showing steady improvement."

Odd game for Langford: Allen Langford added quite the strange experience to his belt last Saturday playing against the team he initially committed to.

Under then-head coach Gerry DiNardo, Indiana courted Langford, and the Detroit native decided to play for the Hoosiers. However, a look from Wisconsin made Langford change his mind.

Langford, who was friends with Hoosier wideout James Bailey in high school (Bailey called Langford every day after he changed his commitment to Wisconsin), took advantage of the chance to play IU, recording his first interception of the season.

"I did probably think that on the Indiana side, they probably were in their locker room saying this guy committed to us and de-committed, so we want to go at him," Langford said. "So I was ready for that. I wanted them to come at me a lot. So I hope they had some type of anger towards me for de-committing from their school."

Another rested opponent: For the second straight week, Wisconsin will face a Big Ten opponent coming off a bye week. In contrast, the Badgers won't get a break until after the 11th week of the season.

As a result, Alvarez said he will alter this week's practice schedule to afford his players a chance to catch their breath heading into a matchup with a much more rested Northwestern team.

"I'm concerned that we're playing an opponent (that) has a bye for the second week in a row," Alvarez said. "I'm not crazy about that. I am very sensitive to us wearing down and the number of injuries that we have, particularly the key people. So we are going to change our practice format. We're going to change some of the things we do in lifting. But I'll change the practice format drastically this week."