What to know about Wisconsin football's next opponent: Miami (Ohio)
Diving into a consistent MAC program that has plenty of former Power Four talent.
Luke Fickell knows Week 1 of the college football season hsa plenty of unknowns with this current landscape of the sport. That holds true both within his University of Wisconsin football team and their first opponent of the 2025 season.
Fickell, in fact, said the word “unknowns” five times in his opening statement during Monday’s availability. Programs’ personnels can change drastically with the transfer portal, and there’s uncertainty in finding out how players will gel together.
The Badgers are days away from beginning to answer some of their own questions when they host Miami (Ohio) inside Camp Randall Stadium on Thursday (8 p.m. CT, Big Ten Network).
“And so it’s an exciting time. It's a challenging time, because even as you start to dive into your opponent, there's a lot of unknowns with them as well,” Fickell said. “That's always been that way in Game 1s. But I think in particular, even for a team like Miami (Ohio), who I think I know a lot about playing them every year (at Cincinnati).
“Chuck Martin has done a great job … over the last (11) years, so there's some consistencies there. But so as you go to personnel, same thing they're probably saying for us. There's a lot of unknowns as they look at what they're going to see, and we look at what we're going to see. But ultimately, Game 1 in particular, it's about focusing on yourself. And for us, it's about going out there, it's about us playing with some confidence and playing clean, because we got a lot to prove to ourselves and a lot to establish as we continue to move forward. But it can't get here fast enough.”
Here’s what to know about Miami (Ohio).
All-time series: Wisconsin vs. Miami (Ohio)
The Badgers won the only meeting between the two programs in a 58-0 blowout in 2015, and it was Paul Chryst’s first victory as Wisconsin’s football coach.
Quarterback Joel Stave completed 19-of-30 passes for 236 yards and three touchdowns to one interception. Running back Dare Ogunbowale accumulated 112 yards rushing with one touchdown, and outside linebacker Vince Biegel recorded one sack and 2½ tackles for loss.
Wisconsin held Miami (Ohio) to 157 total yards, which including the RedHawks recording minus-3 yards on 24 attempts. That stands as the seventh-fewest yards allowed during a single game in Badgers history.