MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez did a town hall session with Badgers fans on Saturday afternoon, answering questions from the audience on a variety of subjects.

Alvarez spoke about the direction of the UW athletic department as a whole, the football and men's basketball programs, facilities updates and more - and our top takeaways from his question and answer session are included below.

The Badgers had quite a run of top shelf non-conference matchups on their football schedule from 2014 through 2016, taking on LSU twice (once in Houston, once in Green Bay) and Alabama one time in Dallas in 2015. Those neutral site games fell off of Wisconsin's schedule in 2017, 2018 and 2019, but the Badgers have another big series coming down the pipe - a matchup with Notre Dame that has been in the works for quite a while.

The Badgers will take on the Fighting Irish in 2020 at Lambeau Field on Oct. 3 and in 2021 at Soldier Field in Chicago on Sept. 25, and Alvarez said he's glad they were finally able to get the Fighting Irish on the schedule for the first time since 1964.

"I talked to Notre Dame about the possibility of us moving into a permanent role on their schedule because I knew they were talking about dropping Michigan, Michigan State and possibly Purdue. I think they ended up dropping Purdue and Michigan State. I tried to work in there. It just didn’t work out," Alvarez said of his earlier efforts to play Notre Dame. "Now they start the Shamrock Series. They called several years ago and said this might be able to work."

"We’re putting the final touches on it right now," Alvarez said. "But that should really be exciting for our fans and I know the people in Green Bay, the LSU game there and how well that went off."

Alvarez said the game in Green Bay will actually be Notre Dame's "home" game in the series, with the Chicago game serving as Wisconsin's "home" game in 2021. The ticket split will be 50-50 between the two schools, and you can bet both games with be well-attended in the years to come.

Alvarez does not serve on the College Football Playoff's selection committee any more after his term ended after the 2016 season, but he does see the new playoff expanding from four teams to as many as eight in the coming years. Because while Alvarez likes having a four-team playoff better than the old BCS system, where the top two teams were selected with the help of a computer system, he still thinks expansion will be good for college football - and for the Big Ten.

"When our league is left out of the playoff for three years in a row, I’m not happy with that," Alvarez said on Saturday. "I don’t think that we have followed the criteria set by the commissioners in naming those four teams. There’s a way you can go to eight teams very easily, starting a week early with a bye with the top four seeds. You can go to eight teams easily. There are eight teams that really could have a chance to win. So I think that it will expand. I just don’t know when."

It could be that seeing the Big Ten - and Wisconsin in 2017 after their 13-0 regular season record - get left out of the playoff in back to back years made Alvarez feel like expansion was more of a necessity.

It's been a while since Alvarez had to pick out a new starting quarterback for the Badgers, but when he was asked what UW head coach Paul Chryst will be looking for in his team's impending quarterback battle Alvarez seemed to jump back in to 'coach' mode relatively quickly. Alvarez talked a little about what it takes to not only win the position battle, but to win the trust of the offensive huddle as well.

"First of all, competition is good," Alvarez said when asked about Wisconsin's quarterback battle. "Competition is good and athletes understand that there’s no given. You have to earn things. Every time that you go to practice, it’s about getting better and competing and being productive. The quarterback position is the most important position on the field. You’re a coach on the field. You manage that group of guys that you’re talking to."

"The great ones stand in there and they own the huddle and guys want to play for them. And then they produce. They make plays. The bottom line is you can be the greatest thrower, the greatest passer in the world. But it’s throwing to the right person, anticipating things and thinking on the run, being able to make decisions on the run."

Alvarez is aware that attendance at Wisconsin football games was down in 2018 - there were more than 15,000 no-shows at Camp Randall on average last year, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. That a lot more to do with fans choosing to stay at home and watch the game on their own TV than it does with sub-par student attendance at games, but Alvarez said they've been kicking around some different ideas to keep fans coming to the stadium.

"I think one way to get there, maybe if we sold beer in the stadium instead of them tailgating until the middle of the second quarter, maybe they’d come in and have a beer and sit down and watch the game," Alvarez said when asked how to increase student engagement at football games. "That was one of my suggestions. We’ve tried a lot of things from a D.J. to bringing a bus, transporting them from State Street or coming down Langdon."

"They buy tickets and I can’t complain. You bought the ticket and you want to come a little late, that’s your prerogative. I don’t really appreciate the fact that they’re not there for our athletes. But I’ve learned this over the years. If it’s me saying something as the football coach about cleaning up the one cheer that they use. If somebody says something, it gets twice as bad. Instead of doing it twice a game, it’s five times a game."

"If you start raising a stink about showing up at kickoff, more will not come. That’s what I’ve found with our students. I just appreciate they buy the tickets. We’ve been overselling by about 1,500 a game. We’ll keep doing that and one of these days when they all show up, some of them won’t get in."

The Badgers have a few facilities projects in the works, including some renovations to the Kohl Center and some additional club seating in the south end zone at Camp Randall. Alvarez pointed to the Kohl Center coming first, and then added on that refreshing the south part of Camp Randall - specifically the Field House and the surrounding area - is part of the long-term plan as well.

"The Kohl Center is over 20 years old, and you’d think it’s brand new," Alvarez said. "We’ve done a great job of maintaining it and keeping it up to date. But it’s a makeshift. Our academic center, training tables and weight rooms, they weren’t designed in the building initially, so we’ve made room for that. We’re in the process of fundraising. We’re going to put three levels on the back of it to include those areas that I talked about. So that’s coming up soon. We’re going to renovate the South end zone and put some premium seats in there. Ground-level club seating."

It might not be a new building, but Alvarez definitely seemed to put a focal point on refreshing the Field House and the area he called "the front porch" of the athletic department.

"I really want to clean up the area in front of the Field House," Alvarez said. "That’s the front porch of our athletic department. If we were selling and people drove by, they wouldn’t stop if you were selling the department. They’d drive by there and kind of crinkle their nose. We’ve got to clean that up, re-do the windows in here, sandblast the stone, do that area and just really freshen up that wall in front and everything else. Those are three projects that are in the queue right now."

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John Veldhuis covers Wisconsin football, basketball and recruiting for BadgerBlitz.com on the Rivals.com network. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnVeldhuis.