MADISON – Wisconsin athletic director Shawn Eichorst hasn’t set specific expectations for the Badgers football program this season yet but admitted coach Luke Fickell checks a couple of boxes.
“We have high standards here and I am so encouraged in my conversations with him,” Eichorst said during his introductory press conference July 7 at Camp Randall Stadium. “Just a good person, high character, a lot of integrity.”
Wisconsin’s football program is the driving force behind the athletic department’s revenue, and Eichorst takes the reins of an athletic program with its football program in a slide. The Badgers have posted back-to-back losing seasons and haven’t won more than seven games in a season since 2021.
The last three seasons of that stretch came under Fickell, who is 17-21 as Badgers head coach.
Those struggles, however, haven’t colored Eichorst’s early impression of the coach. The Badgers’ new AD noted the two have had a couple of get-to-know-you conversations and share the same vision when it comes to maintaining the educational focus of the college athlete’s experience.
Eichorst comes to Wisconsin after eight years at Texas, where he served as deputy AD and chief operating officer as well as oversaw the football program, which made College Football Playoff appearances in 2023 and ’24.
That experience should prove valuable as he assesses the state of the UW football program.
“Obviously, he’s won every place he’s been,” Eichorst said of Fickell, “and so my expectation is more of me than him, meaning I need to pour into him, learn more about his program, how he has things set up, how his athletes are taken care of, how we’re supporting that endeavor.
“Then we can figure out, as we move along, what that might look like. But I’m impressed in my early conversations, and I’m looking forward to learning more, especially meeting the players.”
Eichorst’s first days on the job have been a whirlwind that included conversations with each head coach in the department, current and former athletes and other stakeholders in UW athletics.
He spent the final portion of July 7 taking part in an introductory press conference. It was followed by a reception with players and coaches, an early opportunity for Eichorst to begin building the relationships he feels will be valuable as he leads the athletic department.
“In order to be supportive, I really got to understand more about how it is going and what it is that we’re doing to help and all those other sorts of things,” Eichorst said. “So there’ll be a time and a place to talk about some of that stuff. Right now, I’m just trying to figure out where they are.”
Eichorst’s respect for UW coaches goes beyond Luke Fickell
This will be Eichorst’s second stint at Wisconsin. He worked in the athletic department from 2006-11, rising to the rank for deputy athletic director before becoming the AD at Miami.
As a result, there are some familiar names on the coaching staffs. Mark Johnson (women’s hockey), Yvette Healy (softball), Todd Oehrlein (women’s golf) and Paula Wilkins (women’s soccer) are coaches who were also head coaches during Eichorst’s first stint at UW.
Others like men’s basketball coach Greg Gard were assistant coaches at the time.
This year UW finished 24th in the Learfield Directors’ Cup that awards overall athletics success, won a national championship in women’s hockey, reached the championship game in men’s hockey and advanced to the Final Four in women’s volleyball.
Eichorst called UW’s collection of coaches impressive.
“As I was poking around a little bit, I was starting to hear some good themes about where we were,” he said. “You’re going to be as good as your coaches. It’s just that simple, right? If you have an elite group of coaches who were working together and uniting and galvanizing and learning from one another and then taking that out to their individual programs, I think you can start to build something special.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What AD Shawn Eichorst sees in Luke Fickell, Wisconsin’s head coaches
Reporting by Mark Stewart, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Mark Stewart, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
