Ad Disclosure
Luke Fickell claims Wisconsin has found ‘identity that fits us’ entering 2025 season
By Paul Harvey
Published:
When Luke Fickell arrived in Madison, expectations were high for Wisconsin. He had recently led Cincinnati to a rare College Football Playoff appearance after turning the Bearcats into one of the most consistent programs in the country.
Unfortunately, the first 2 seasons of Fickell’s tenure have not been up to par with the elite results he delivered at Cincinnati. Since the start of the 2023 season, the Badgers are just 12-13 overall, missing a bowl game altogether in 2024.
To call that a disappointment is a massive understatement. After all, remember why a change was made in Madison to begin with.
After a 9-4 season in 2021, Paul Chryst was fired 5 games into the season after a 2-3 record to begin the season. And a 4-3 mark by longtime DC Jim Leonhard was not enough to land the full-time job.
Clearly, the bar for Fickell was set high. Much higher than the stumbling mess the Badgers have been since he was brought on, particularly on the offensive side of the ball.
It must be said that injuries have impacted that, particularly at the quarterback position. Still, that alone is not enough to add up to an offense that has finished 93rd and 109th nationally in points per game under Fickell.
Further complicating matters is that Fickell rolled a massive gamble, opting to shift the Badgers into an Air Raid philosophy by hiring OC Phil Longo. To some longtime fans, that was the equivalent of saying the state of Wisconsin was going to stop making cheese.
That gamble did not work, but Fickell believes the trajectory of the program is still intact. That’s due to a redefined identity for the Badgers.
In a recent sit-down interview with ESPN’s Pete Thamel, Fickell described the new look presented by OC Jeff Grimes as one that identifies where physicality starts but also allows the team to be multiple in its attack:
“I feel like it’s the identity that we need, and it’s not completely all the way old-school back, but I think the idea of being more multiple and truly understanding what physicality-first looks like is where we kind of came to,” said Fickell. “Whether it was Coach Grimes’ philosophy or his scheme or really just his personality. I think we’re in a good place. Obviously, we’ve got a ways to continue to grow, but I really do feel like we’ve got the identity that fits us, that gives us a chance to lean on our guys up front, but still be multiple enough to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got to be able to create big plays and create space and get down the field just maybe in some different ways’.”
Within that interview, Fickell also said the program is not backing down from the mountain to climb while also acknowledging there are still expectations that the Badgers will be relevant year in and year out. However, how the program does that in the 18-team, division-less era of Big Ten football remains to be seen.
The Badgers can still compete, but they can no longer climb to the B1G Championship by simply beating up on Northwestern or a previously downtrodden Nebraska program. Now, Wisconsin must compete with the elite programs of Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon to finish at the top of the pecking order, and that’s coming off a season that saw the Badgers lose to Nebraska and Minnesota.
If the new identity is for real, that will be a major step in the right direction for Fickell. And it’s a move that could determine whether or not he gets a 4th year in 2026.
Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.