Last season, Kalen DeBoer and Alabama made the trip up to Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin, and the Badger fans in attendance weren’t quite feeling up to jumping around amid a 42-10 beatdown. This season, Wisconsin and Alabama will conclude their home-and-home series in Week 3 at Bryant-Denny Stadium, and if Luke Fickell thinks that Tuscaloosa will be anything like Iowa City, his team won’t be ready.
Last season, Wisconsin notched just two wins away from home, beating Rutgers and Northwestern in consecutive weeks as the Badgers limped to a 5-7 record. The worst of their three road losses came in front of nearly 70,000 Iowa fans at Kinnick Stadium, falling 42-10.
So, in the lead-up to Week 3, Fickell told the media, “We’ll be better prepared than we were last year when we went to Iowa.” While that might be true, the comparison falls incredibly flat. Kinnick seems to be one of the most underrated fan environments in the country, and “The Hawkeye Wave” is one of the best traditions in sports, but SEC country is a whole different animal.
"We'll be prepared better than we were last year when we went to Iowa." - Luke Fickell
— Karl Winter (@KarlWinterTV) September 9, 2025
Here's a bit on the #Badgers' preparation for the atmosphere in Tuscaloosa, and how recent history of how both programs have fared against ranked and unranked teams. pic.twitter.com/TI4de46u1D
Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell compares Alabama road trip to Iowa
Fickell has been piping crowd noise into Wisconsin’s practices since Sunday to prepare his quarterback, Billy Edwards Jr., and his offensive line to handle the noise at the line of scrimmage. That should aid in preparation, as does having Edwards healthy after the Badgers were without Tyler Van Dyke for nearly all of 2024 after he suffered an injury against Alabama.
Still, Wisconsin has never beaten an SEC team on the road, and as 21.5-point underdogs on Saturday, they’re not likely to this time around either. No amount of practice preparation will prepare a Big Ten team that avoided Beaver Stadium, Ohio Stadium, and The Big House last season, for the noise of Bryant-Denny, even for a noon kickoff.
Kinnick might be much of Wisconsin’s roster’s best frame of reference, but that just means they’re in for a rude awakening on Saturday afternoon. The same way Fickell’s undefeated Cincinnati team was in the 2021 College Football Playoff against the Crimson Tide. There isn’t much that can get you ready for the difference in athletes between the American Conference and the SEC, just like there isn’t anything that can prepare you for the 30,000 extra fans that can pack into see the Tide play.