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Wisconsin Badgers football happy with being overlooked to start 2025 season

All of the talk about the Wisconsin Badgers' difficult schedule has the national college football media largely overlooking Luke Fickell's squad this season.
Lorin Cox|
Oct 12, 2024; Piscataway, New Jersey, USA; Wisconsin Badgers running back Darrion Dupree (13) celebrates his touchdown run with offensive lineman Jake Renfro (57) during the second half against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at SHI Stadium.
Oct 12, 2024; Piscataway, New Jersey, USA; Wisconsin Badgers running back Darrion Dupree (13) celebrates his touchdown run with offensive lineman Jake Renfro (57) during the second half against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at SHI Stadium. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

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Wisconsin Badgers

All of the talk about the Wisconsin Badgers' difficult schedule has the national college football media largely overlooking Luke Fickell's squad this season.

They don't mind flying under the radar.

The lack of attention or expectations doesn't bother them, and it gives them the opportunity to prove people wrong.

"Nobody's talking about us. No one cares about us. That's okay. That's totally fine," center Jake Renfro said Tuesday. "We know what we did last year. We know what happened. But this is where we show the world what we are, who we are and what we can do."

That won't be much of a factor for Week 1 or 2 against Miami (OH) and Middle Tennessee State.

But come Week 3 against Alabama and the Big Ten schedule that follows, Wisconsin will often be the underdog.

It's a status that the Badgers earned with a 5-7 finish last season, but they're eager to show the improvement they've made over the offseason.

That starts with imposing their will on lesser non-conference opponents in the first two games, and not letting them hang around the way Wisconsin did to begin last season.

Pulling off an upset over a ranked team later on in the schedule would go a long way, too.

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Lorin Cox
LORIN COX

Lorin Cox is the managing editor of Wisconsin Badgers on SI. He has been covering Badgers sports since 2014, when he was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. He previously wrote for the Wisconsin State Journal, NBC Sports Chicago and USA Today Sports Media Group, and he is a former analyst for Pro Football Focus.

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