Wisconsin, Alabama to Open 2015 Season at Cowboys Stadium

Wisconsin and Alabama will open the 2015 college football season at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, the Badgers announced on their official Facebook page on Wednesday.

The game will be played on Sept. 5, 2015, and will be the second time the two programs have met. After Wisconsin teased the announcement through various social media channels earlier in the day, rumors ranging from new uniforms to Gunner Kiel transferring blew up the Twittersphere. But with the release, a long-rumored bit of scheduling was finally confirmed.

"As a league we decided that we needed to upgrade our non-conference schedule," UW Director of Athletics Barry Alvarez said in a statement. "We understand that strength of schedule will be a factor in determining which teams earn the right to participate in the new four-team playoff system and we want to be in that mix. There's no better way to do that than by playing the defending national champions. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to play a storied program like Alabama in a terrific venue like Cowboys Stadium. It will be a great experience for our program, our players and our fans."

Obviously, the game time and television information have yet to be decided. Wisconsin and Alabama have met just once, back on Nov. 3, 1928, at Camp Randall Stadium. The Badgers won, 15-0.

As UW's release points out, Wisconsin hasn't played an SEC team since 2007. That ended a string of five consecutive bowl games from 2003-07 in which the Badgers went 2-3 against SEC teams. Wisconsin hasn't faced an SEC squad in the regular season since Sept. 30, 1972, when it lost to LSU, 27-7.