Badgers Face a Gauntlet of New-Coached Opponents in 2026

The 2026 Wisconsin football schedule, published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, reads less like a normal conference slate and more like a gauntlet built around coaching transitions. Sixteen of the program’s new-look opponents all enter the season with a head coach who took over in 2025 or is making a high-profile return. Wisconsin has to navigate Penn State under Matt Campbell, Michigan State under Pat Fitzgerald, UCLA under Bob Chesney, Rutgers under Greg Schiano, Maryland under Michael Locksley, and Purdue under Barry Odom — plus Minnesota, where P.J. Fleck has won the last two meetings.

The opening weekend already contains one of the season’s biggest storylines. On Sunday, Sept. 6, the Badgers meet Marcus Freeman’s Notre Dame Fighting Irish at 6:30 p.m. at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. The Shamrock Series fixture was originally scheduled for Lambeau in 2020 and canceled because of the pandemic; the two schools played at Soldier Field a year later. This is the first college game at Lambeau Field since Wisconsin hosted LSU in 2016.

Notre Dame, 10-2 in 2025 with a 10-game winning streak, withdrew from bowl consideration after missing the College Football Playoff. It was a team that had lost four of its last five games of the season and then found itself outside the playoff bracket despite its record.

The nonconference portion closes out against Eastern Michigan on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 11:30 a.m. at Camp Randall Stadium. The Eagles went 4-8 overall and 1-5 on the road in 2025 under Chris Creighton, in his 13th season. Before that, Western Illinois, 4-8 in each of the last two years under Joe Davis, serves as the September opener’s easy label: the Leathernecks are 0-11 in consecutive seasons in 2022 and 2023 and haven’t had a winning season since 2017.

Conference play opens on Saturday, Sept. 26, at Beaver Stadium against the rebuilt Penn State program. Matt Campbell, 46, replaces James Franklin after a 7-6, 3-6 season in which Franklin was fired. Campbell spent 10 years at Iowa State, winning Big 12 Coach of the Year three times, and his former starting quarterback, Rocco Bech, transferred to State College with him.

Then comes the unusual home-and-home symmetry of the early November stretch. Wisconsin returns to Camp Randall on Saturday, Oct. 24, to host Lincoln Riley’s USC Trojans, ranked 14th after a 9-4, 7-2 Big Ten finish in 2025. The Badgers fell to the Trojans 38-21 in their last meeting in 2024, when USC scored 28 unanswered second-half points. A week earlier, on Oct. 17, Wisconsin travels to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena to face an undefeated UCLA squad at 6:30 p.m., broadcast by NBC.

The Bruins arrive as slight favorites despite losing starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava to a knee injury. UCLA has finished 3-6 in conference play in each of its first two Big Ten seasons and has Bob Chesney in his first year after two at James JMU, where he was Sun Belt Coach of the Year and led the Dukes to the College Football Playoff.

The Rose Bowl is not a novelty venue for Wisconsin. The Badgers have played six Rose Bowl games since 1998, most recently losing to Oregon at the end of the 2019 season. This is their first regular-season trip to Pasadena.

The middle of October carries a matchup that Wisconsin has been struggling with. On Saturday, Oct. 31, the Badgers travel to Kinnick Stadium to face Kirk Ferentz and Iowa, looking to end a four-game losing streak in the series. The last two contests were blowouts: 42-10 in 2024 and 37-0 last season. Ferentz, 71, is entering his 28th season as Iowa’s head coach, and the Hawkeyes have posted 13 straight winning seasons. Iowa goes into 2026 coming off a 9-4, 6-3 campaign that included a ReliaQuest Bowl win over Vanderbilt.

After a bye week, Wisconsin hosts Rutgers on Saturday, Nov. 7, hoping to stay undefeated in the all-time series. Every Badger victory has come by double digits against Greg Schiano’s Scarlet Knights, who finished 2-7 in Big Ten play in 2025, the same way Wisconsin did.

The next road trip, Saturday, Nov. 14 at SECU Stadium in College Park, offers a chance to erase the sting of last year’s 27-10 loss to Michael Locksley’s Maryland Terrapins. It was Wisconsin’s first defeat to Maryland in the series, which now stands at 4-1. That win was also Maryland’s only Big Ten victory of the season; the Terrapins finished 4-8 overall and 1-8 in conference play.

Purdue, a winless Big Ten team in each of the last two years and 3-22 overall, is next on Saturday, Nov. 21 at Ross–Ade Stadium. Barry Odom is in his second season as the Boilermakers’ head coach.

The season closes on Black Friday, Saturday, Nov. 27, at 6:30 p.m. at Camp Randall, when Wisconsin renews the Battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe with P.J. Fleck’s Minnesota. The Gophers, 8-5 overall and 5-4 in Big Ten play in each of the last two seasons, have beaten Wisconsin in the last two meetings and four of the last five.