Wisconsin's Luke Fickell doesn't sugarcoat challenge of playing at Penn State

MADISON – Luke Fickell saw enough of Beaver Stadium during his days at Ohio State to have an idea of what’s in store for his team this weekend.

“There's no place that can be a wilder, crazier, louder environment than Happy Valley, especially later at night in a game that means a lot,” the Wisconsin Badgers head football coach said.

Big Ten play opens this week for Wisconsin and Penn State in a pivotal season for both programs.

Fickell is attempting to pull Wisconsin out of a four-year slide in which the program’s record has remained the same or gotten worse each year.

Meanwhile, Matt Campbell is primed for his Big Ten debut after spending the past 10 years at Iowa State. The Nittany Lions, who are 3-0 and ranked No. 14 in the USA Today US LBM coaches poll, are off to a good start in their push for a bounce-back campaign after going 7-6 in a season they ranked high as No. 2 in the country.

“We've got to recognize this is the start of Big Ten play, and that's what this has always been about and will continue to be about.…” Fickell said. “This will be our first time not just going on the road but going on the road where it's going to be a hostile environment in the Big Ten. We have to be prepared for a lot of different things that we haven't done, and we haven't had to do just yet.”

Fickell talked about the matchup during his weekly news conference Sept. 21 at Camp Randall Stadium.

That game will mark the first time this season UW had had to deal with crowd noise that can rise to the level of distraction and momentum swings that hit harder with 107,000 fans fanning the flames.

The matchup marks Wisconsin’s first trip to Happy Valley since 2018.  The Badgers have lost four in a row there by an average margin of 16.8 points and dropped six straight in the series overall.

The Badgers’ last win at Penn State was a 30-23 triumph on 2003.

A challenge this time will be contain an offense that rank 23rd nationally with 492 yards per game and features one of the nation's most experienced quarterbacks. Fifth-year senior Rocco Becht, a transfer from Iowa State, leads FBS signal callers in wins (29) and has 10,025 career passing yards.

"He gives them a lot of options and a lot of different things," Fickell said. "He's a dual threat guy that hasn't had to use his feet a ton, and I think that's because of the development that he's had, not just as a passer but also as a manager of the game."

Though 10-point underdogs, the Badgers will go into the game with one advantage. Their 41-13 loss to then-No. 5 Notre Dame on Sept. 6 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay exposed them in a way that allowed them address their shortcomings early and led Fickell to say his team wore down in the second half.

Saturday UW will get another chance to manage its emotions and energy in what is expected to be a charged setting.

Penn State, on the other hand, hasn’t been pushed to that limit. The Nittany Lions are averaging 42.4 points per game, and only one of its opponents enters Week 4 above .500.

"There's an emotional side of things that we've got to be prepared for and whether that's from the very start in an environment like that to obviously coming out after half being able to play 60 plus minutes," Fickell said. "I think that there's a lot of things that we can draw upon from Week 1."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin's Luke Fickell doesn't sugarcoat challenge of playing at Penn State