University of Wisconsin football fans should get used to a couple of things when it comes to future schedules.
The first is playing a game against a Football Championship Subdivision opponent nearly every year.
The second, if UW coach Bret Bielema has his way, is scheduling games at NFL stadiums, including possibly Lambeau Field at some time.
UW announced on Thursday the finalization of its 2009 schedule, as well as a game against Northern Illinois at Soldier Field in Chicago in 2011.
The Badgers had two open dates to fill next year after Central Florida pulled out of the opener on Sept. 5. They also had an open date on Sept. 19.
The new schedule opens with Northern Illinois now at Camp Randall Stadium. The Badgers were supposed to play in DeKalb, Ill., on Oct. 24. That is now an open date and the game was moved to Solider Field on Sept. 17, 2011.
The other addition to next year's schedule is Wofford (Sept. 19), a member of the Southern Conference, currently 4-1 and ranked No. 6 among FCS schools.
Meanwhile, next year's game at Hawaii has been moved from Nov. 28 to Dec. 5.
Next year will be the fourth straight season playing an opponent from the FCS (formerly Division I-AA), following games against Western Illinois (2006), The Citadel (2007) and Cal Poly this season (Nov. 22).
Bielema is under a mandate from the UW athletic department to schedule seven home games every year. To do that, he said it likely means playing a FCS team nearly every year. UW fans have been critical of those games.
"Just the way scheduling is, for us to get three non-conference games here at home, you're just not going to be able to meet scheduling demands,"
Bielema said. "(Schools) will come here, as long as we go there. Obviously, you can't keep doing that (and still get seven home games)."
Bielema would like to play the one road non-conference game at an NFL site when possible. Possibilities he mentioned were playing Oregon State, a future opponent, in Seattle, or Virginia Tech in Washington D.C.
"For a fan in Wisconsin to go to Corvallis (Ore.) against Oregon State, it might be a bigger draw to go to a bigger city and see an NFL stadium,"
Bielema said.
Bielema has talked to the director of ESPN about the idea and, "That's something they get excited about, too."
There have been early discussions about playing in Lambeau. Bielema would like to have "our one non-conference away game every other year be at Lambeau."
The idea of playing non-conference games in pro stadiums came after Northern Illinois and Iowa opened the 2007 season at Soldier Field. Bielema said both teams were paid $1 million.
"That was intriguing to us, to have an away game and also get $1 million,"
he said.
The game at Hawaii was moved to give UW a week off before making the long trip. The Badgers have never traveled to Hawaii without an open date the week before.
In other future schedule changes that were announced, the locations of the home-and-home series with UNLV have been switched. The Badgers will be at UNLV on Sept. 4, 2010 and home against UNLV on Sept. 3, 2011.
A two-game series with San Diego State, originally scheduled for 2010 and 2012, has been canceled.
