Luke Fickell is not interested in slowly building the Wisconsin football program. On Thursday, the new head coach revealed that his expectation in Year 1 is to play for a championship.

Read that as you may: B1G or CFP. Either way, those are some lofty expectations in Year 1. But it’s not like Fickell hasn’t been in similar situations before.

Fickell was revolutionary at Cincinnati before he accepted to head job in Madison. He won the AAC championship twice with the Bearcats, once in 2020 and once again in 2021 when Cincinnati became the first G5 team to reach the College Football Playoff.

Fickell made another important comment in the same breath, insisting that nobody outside the Wisconsin program will define success at Wisconsin:

Wisconsin has been labeled by some as a major sleeper team in the B1G, and it’s easy to see the tough process behind it. The Badgers return Braelon Allen and a strong offensive line while also adding Tanner Mordecai from SMU, via Oklahoma.

Not to mention, Wisconsin’s schedule is fairly tame this season. The path to 10 wins for the Badgers is absolutely there after a 7-6 season in 2022.

Let’s see what Fickell can do.