With the unveiling of the 2020 and 2021 Wisconsin football schedules came some intriguing matchups.
Obviously the schedules were filled with the usual Big Ten West opponents Wisconsin fans have become accustomed to seeing year in and year out. The timing of when those games are played out, though, is slightly different.
Fans have grown to know the Fight for Paul Bunyan’s axe to land on the Thanksgiving holiday weekend when Wisconsin takes on Minnesota. In 2020 and 2021, however, the game will happen during early October.
Wisconsin will still end their seasons with rival games, two to be exact. Both seasons will end with the second-to-last game being Nebraska, and the last game being Iowa.
The Big Ten also seems to be shifting conference cross-over play to the earlier part of the season, instead of intertwining it into divisional play, which is how it has been for the previous few years.
Highlighting cross-over play for Wisconsin is the 2021 season during which they’ll battle Penn State to open up the season at Camp Randall, followed by another home game against Michigan three weeks later.
Non-conference opponents in 2020 and 2021 also offer intrigue.
A home-and-home series with Syracuse takes up Week 2 of both seasons, complimenting a two-year neutral site series against Notre Dame in Week 5 of 2020 and Week 3 of 2021. Wisconsin will also take on Army in 2021, which offers an intriguing matchup of two programs with storied running games.
Check out the 2020 schedule here and the 2021 schedule here.