Right now, the University of Wisconsin football team is trying to get well.

After losing back-to-back games for the first time since 2005, the Badgers have dropped out of the top 25 and are fighting for their lives in the Big Ten.

Fortunately for Wisconsin (5-2, 2-2), they return to Camp Randall Stadium in Madison for the first time in three weeks to take on NIU (1-6, 0-4), one of this year’s worst Division 1 football teams, for an 11 a.m. Saturday kickoff.

NIU head coach Joe Novak knows the date with the Badgers couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“They got a little air let out of their sails, but they are gonna be in a foul mood coming back home,” Novak said. “They see a little bit of blood pouring out of the Huskies, and I think they’re gonna go after the kill.”

The Badgers are almost unbeatable at home, having won 11 straight and 22-of-23 in Madison. However, it has been a crazy season of college football where anything can happen.

“It is a hard place to win, but it is a fun place to play,” Novak said. “It’s a long shot, and we are big underdogs, but then again, so was Stanford [at USC] and so was Appalachian State [at Michigan]. If you go into Madison and you look up into that stadium and see all those people and you can’t get fired up for football on that, then you do not have a pulse. I do and I am 62-years-old.”

Even though the Huskies’ preseason goal of a MAC Championship is long-gone, it’s all about playing for pride at this point, especially for the seniors, who have only five games left in their career.

“For the senior class that is playing here for the fifth year, it does not take a whole lot to get us motivated anymore,” senior Mark Reiter said. “We have missed some opportunities and have not had much luck, but we still go into every week with the same chip on our shoulder, whether we are winning or losing.”