The Illinois head coach is bringing a ‘been there, done that’ mentality to his second trip to Madison as the leader of the Illini program.

November 18. 2025

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — As far as he’s concerned about this weekend, Bret Bielema believes nostalgia is nothing more than a toxic impulse.

Bielema has already made the trip to Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin while the head coach at the University of Illinois. Even after that 34-10 victory on the visiting sideline of his former employer, Bielema said he learned a lesson that he thought he’d fully understood nearly two decades prior when he first went back to his alma mater, Iowa, as a Wisconsin defensive coordinator.

“I’m going to back to Iowa for the first time in my career as a coach and everybody made it about that. I quickly realized that the only time that really matters is after the game,” Bielema said in his weekly media conference inside Gies Memorial Stadium on Monday. “You have so many ties to people at so many different places. I still have a lot of friends at Wisco, a lot of people not specifically in the athletic department and not connected with football. It’s not about that anymore.”

The 24-point victory in Madison on that early October afternoon in 2022 did have consequential ripple effects for a lot of folks on the home sideline in the next coming days. Paul Chryst, one of Bielema’s former colleagues with the Badgers under Barry Alvarez and best friends in the coaching business, was terminated the next day. Jim Leonhard, the interim Wisconsin head coach named by then-athletics director Chris McIntosh, would eventually become a senior analyst at Illinois after he was passed over for the full-time gig at Wisconsin - his alma mater.

For Bielema, this trip north will never be about going back to a place where he married his wife and had 68 wins including three Big Ten championships and two Rose Bowl trips.

“I am very proud of the things I accomplished there but none of those accomplishments are going to help us next Saturday. Nothing we did there on the field is going to carry forward,” Bielema said in the week leading up the 2022 game. “Paul Chryst and I are very good friends in the offseason. (Wisconsin defensive coordinator) Jimmy Leonhard was the first player I ever visited. Coach Alvarez said if you get Jimmy you are going to get them all, he’s a very accomplished defensive coordinator. My wife and I got married there so you can’t get more special than that. Those are all things that pertained to me, but this is about the University of Illinois.”

For this Illinois staff, Wisconsin ties are abundant. Aaron Henry is in his third season as the Illini defensive coordinator but the former Badgers defensive back who played for Bielema at Wisconsin gave one his twin daughters the middle name of ‘Madison’ to represent where he and his wife Camille, a native of Milwaukee, first met in college. For the record, their other twin daughter has the middle name of ‘Savoy’ to represent where they currently live now.

Terrance Jamison, the Illini’s defensive line coach and one of Bielema’s first hires to his Illinois coaching staff after taking the job in Dec. 2020, played defensive line for Bielema at Wisconsin while earning has two degrees from the university, a bachelor's in agricultural business management (2009) and a master's in educational leadership and policy analysis (2011). Jamison began his coaching career at Wisconsin under Bielema nearly two decades ago.

Bart Miller was a graduate assistant and offensive line coach at Wisconsin under Bielema from 2011-12. James White, currently in his first year as an assistant running backs coach at Illinois, helped the Badgers to three Big Ten titles and three trips to the Rose Bowl. He was named the 2010 Big Ten Freshman of the Year and ran for 4,015 yards and scored 48 touchdowns during his Wisconsin career, ranking fourth in school history in rushing yards and third in total touchdowns. In the last game Bielema ever coached at Wisconsin, White helped lead the Badgers to a 70-31 win over Nebraska in the 2012 Big Ten Championship game by accounting for five touchdowns. He ran for 109 yards and tied a career high with four rushing touchdowns and also threw a 3-yard touchdown pass in the rout of the Cornhuskers.

Even somebody like Alex Panos, a co-outside linebackers coach, is very familiar with the state as a native of Hartland, Wisconsin, where he helped powerhouse program Arrowhead High School to three state title game appearances. The Panos name has lore inside Madison, Wisconsin as Alex’s father Joe was an All-American captain of the Badgers' 1993-94 Rose Bowl team and is now an accomplished sports agent. Panos' brother, George, played college football at Wisconsin and is now a scout for the Houston Texans.

“It’s like I told all of our players (Sunday) about this game, it ain’t about me and what my family feels for Wisconsin,” Henry said. “I was talking to James White (Sunday) about when Coach Bielema would have our practice periods be 15 periods of inside run. But here’s the deal, here is home now.”

None of those memories from Bielema or his staff will have any impact when the football is kicked off on Saturday night (6:30 p.m. CST, Big Ten Network) for a conference game where Illinois (7-3, 4-3 in Big Ten Conference) is a double-digit road favorite against Wisconsin for the first time in at least 35 years.

“I can tell you night time will always seem to produce a more vibrant crowd shall we say,” Illinois offensive coordinator Barry Lunney Jr. said. “This is one of those where you go on the road and you know those people will impact the game in some form because that’s the reputation of that place. You watch them beat Washington at home and you immediately know this team is playing with a lot of effort and energy.”