Under Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez, the Wolverines are 1-7 on the road.

It won't be easy to get road win No. 2 tomorrow.

Camp Randall Stadium in Wisconsin is known as one of the nation’s toughest stadiums to play in. Yes, Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema needed to send an e-mail before the Badgers’ Big Ten opener against Michigan State to ask students to arrive to the game on time (five minutes before kickoff, to be exact). But that’s only because the tailgate culture is alive and well in Madison — and by the second quarter, the rowdy crowd is loud enough that opposing coaches need to prepare especially for them.

Rodriguez said Monday the coaches would pump in crowd noise as usual at this week’s practices, but get a little more intense toward the end of the week to prepare the team for the “Jump Around” crowd tradition. Between the third and fourth quarters, the entire crowd at Camp Randall Stadium jumps to the House of Pain song, and the upper deck of the stadium sways under its force.

“We’ll play the song and all jump around for a little bit,” Rodriguez quipped Monday, drawing laughs before turning serious. “Naw, not in the mood this week. I probably won’t jump as high.”

He likely wasn’t in the mood the last time he went to Camp Randall, either, when his 2002 West Virginia team lost to the Badgers 34-17 in his second year with the Mountaineers. But that game was the first of just three regular-season losses, en route to West Virginia’s 9-3 turnaround after finishing 3-8 the previous year. Saturday's game doesn't give Rodriguez as much of a margin of error.

Again, he’s facing the Badgers as a second-year coach, but under much different circumstances. His road record is dismal compared to past Wolverine coaches in their first two years — Bo Schembechler posted a 6-2 road record in his first two seasons, Gary Moeller was 9-1 and Lloyd Carr was 6-4.

Michigan’s 4-0 start this year has turned into a distant memory, and Saturday’s road game has become more important than ever to seal bowl eligibility and take some of the heat off of Rodriguez.

"Losing wears on a lot of people,” Rodriguez said. “It wears on the coaches more than anybody. I know fans are frustrated, coaches are frustrated, players are frustrated. But what are you going to do? You don't have a reset button. Just got to learn from it, move on to the next one.”

Last week’s close loss to Purdue, which may have been Michigan’s best shot to gain bowl eligibility, seemed to hurt the team more than the others. Senior defensive end Brandon Graham, who has always been this team’s emotional leader, talked after last Saturday's loss about how much the disappointment from this season has weighed on him and his coach.

“(Rodriguez) is holding it together,” Graham said. “He hasn’t broke down in front of us or nothing. He’s been strong, and we’ve all been strong. I haven’t broke down yet — I always wait until I get home.”

That doesn’t sound like a player or program that will be coming into Wisconsin with the confident swagger needed to tune out the Camp Randall crowd. But in typical fashion, the Wolverines insist they’ll keep plugging away.

“We learn from our mistakes and we're going to be fine,” freshman quarterback Tate Forcier said. “Like I said, we've just got to win these next few games.”