Before the No. 10 University of Wisconsin football team heads to Fresno, Calif., this weekend for its first road game of the season against the Fresno State Bulldogs, UW head coach Bret Bielema entertained questions Monday at his weekly press conference regarding his squad and how he feels his players will perform on the road.
"(It's) our first opportunity to go out on the road against Fresno State, a very good football team. They moved up to 21 in the country,"
Bielema said. "They are a lot higher on my poll than that."
The biggest concern for UW will be special teams, as Fresno State sports the nation's No. 1 return man from last season in junior cornerback A.J. Jefferson. Bielema emphasized the Badgers' need to extinguish any big returns and set the tone early while on the road.
"As anyone knows when you are on the road any type of momentum that starts out in the favor of the home team can have an overwhelming effect so we have to start off fast,"
he said. "We have to be able to execute."
That may be easier said than done, since the Badgers start a total of seven true freshmen and six redshirt freshmen on two or more special teams packages. Last week against Marshall, UW had two freshmen almost give up the football during Wisconsin's first punt return, as both players thought that the football had been touched by sophomore Badger return man David Gilreath. The two almost fumbled the ball away as they scrambled to pick it up.
"Sixteen guys getting their first reps out there (on special teams) and obviously they were in Camp Randall, and this will be the first time this coming Saturday that they will get reps on the road so there is a learning curve that we have to go through,"
said Bielema.
Against Marshall, Wisconsin faced the nation's No. 2 and 3 return men from last year, and with Jefferson this week, the Badgers have ran the gauntlet in terms of playing against the nation's best in the return game.
"We've got our hands full on the special teams phase once again, and it has got to be a great day for all three phases,"
said Bielema.
The Badgers got off to a slow start against Marshall, and were unable to move the ball early in the game. Although the Badgers ended up scoring 51-straight unanswered points, the game could have easily gone a different direction. Bielema talked about how important it was for UW to recover, especially considering the rest of the college football landscape.
"I wanted those guys to take note of it, because there are teams in the world of college football that weren't able to overcome bad situations, ultimately ended up losing and moving down in the rankings,"
he said.
The lessons learned from Marshall will have to be quickly put into use against the Bulldogs, as Wisconsin joins the very small fraternity of only five teams in the nation who will play a nonconference game on the road against a top-25 ranked team.
"We are one of only five teams in college football this year that is going on the road to play a ranked team in their own house,"
Bielema said. "I think (it) speaks volumes about the program."
