Southern Illinois Announces Non-Conference Matchup with Wisconsin for 2027
It looks like the Badgers and the Salukis football programs will play after all ... just seven years down the road.
On Tuesday, Southern Illinois announced that both it and Wisconsin "have agreed to reschedule" their non-conference bout to Sept. 4, 2027.
"I'd like to commend the administration at Wisconsin for diligently working with us to find a suitable replacement date and fair compensation," SIU athletic director Liz Jarnigan said in the public release. "Guarantee games are a critical source of revenue for our department, and our players, coaches and fans always look forward to the challenge of playing an elite program like Wisconsin."
About said "fair compensation": Wisconsin will reportedly pay Southern Illinois $625,000 for the 2027 matchup, "the largest payout in school history," according to Southern Illinois's release. That is up from the $500,000 it references for what would have been paid for the 2020 game.
The two programs were initially slated to face off against one another on Sept. 12 of this year inside Camp Randall Stadium, which would have been the first of UW's non-conference contests. In July, however, the Big Ten announced that its schools' fall sports would only face off against one another, thus canceling any games outside the conference.
Of course, the Big Ten Conference released a statement on Tuesday afternoon, declaring "the postponement" of its fall sports schedule for the 2020-21 year.