Wisconsin could struggle against the 3-3 Northwestern Wildcats this weekend, but it may have more to do with the environment the Badgers will play in than the actual threat of the team.
Ryan Field, Northwestern’s football stadium, is currently under an $800 million construction revamp, forcing the Wildcats to relocate and play all of their home games this season at a field that hosts 15,000 fans and a lot of wind. This is a mere fraction of the 80,321 capacity at Wisconsin’s Camp Randall.
Martin Stadium is the Wildcats’ temporary home field, and it’s just 50 feet from Lake Michigan, so the wind could also severely affect Wisconsin’s play. In a game of inches, that may just deflate Wisconsin’s air raid offense that has worked in their last few games.
The Badgers will naturally have less of a fan presence since this is an away game. But with Martin Stadium’s small maximum capacity, Wisconsin is guaranteed to have an unusually small crowd. When the team hosted Purdue a few weeks back, they filled 76,091 seats in Camp Randall. They won’t even see a fifth of that amount of fans this Saturday.
But the lack of a huge crowd is arguably less uncomfortable than the other factor that the Badgers aren’t accustomed to: the wind. With such close proximity between the bleachers and Lake Michigan, the wind is undeniably going to be present.
Northwestern’s head coach David Braun said his team has been working on adjusting to these conditions and how it’ll impact their special teams unit. Wisconsin, on the other hand, has had no such opportunity to work on familiarizing themselves with the gusts that will likely come their way. Running the ball more may be their only option.
Conditions in no way will be ideal, but coming off of a 42-7 on-the-road win against Rutgers may give the Badgers enough momentum that won’t get lost in the wind. Even without packed stands singing and jumping to “Jump Around.”
Kickoff is at 11 a.m. on Saturday in Evanston, Illinois.
