CHICAGO – It’s been a decade since Luke Fickell served as Urban Meyer’s assistant, but the lessons from that era still resonate.
Wisconsin’s football coach reflected on one of them during Big Ten media day July 28 at the Hilton Hotel as he summed up his mind state heading into his fourth season with the Badgers.
Meyer’s message was to not sleep on the game and as time has passed Fickell has learned the layers within those words.
“I always envisioned that he meant don’t sleep on the schemes that are developing within the game because one day you wake up, and the game will pass you by,” Fickell said.
“The truth of the matter is that wasn’t just in the schemes of the game, that was in all of the game and what has kind of evolved over the last three or four years. Recognizing the evolution of this game is really critical to what we’re doing.”
Fickell spoke those words after an offseason of introspection and re-evaluation following a 4-8 campaign marked the program’s lowest win total for a non-COVID season since 1995 and its lowest winning percentage since going 1-10 in 1990.
As a result, UW retooled how it trained and practiced. Fickell also made changes to the coaching staff that included making a change at offensive line coach and adding positions to the defensive staff that created more oversight of the secondary and the unit as a whole.
“The last two years for us have not been up to the standard and I’m not shying away from that,” he said. “The standard of what we have to uphold and where we have to grow as a football program, it hasn’t been there.
“That’s not just in the wins and losses. That’s in a lot of other things as well. The way we play the game, the physicality, the toughness. We’ve got to do a hell of a lot better job at doing (those things). I can promise you that we will and things are obviously moving in that direction.”
Fickell is optimistic about UW in 2026 despite lacking a large number of key returners.
The defense returns just three starters: safety Matt Jung and sophomore linebackers Mason Posa and Cooper Catalano. The offense returns two starters: receiver Chris Brooks and redshirt sophomore guard Emerson Mandell.
To file the void, the Badgers signed 34 players from the transfer portal that include former Old Dominion quarterback Colton Joseph and former Iowa State running back Abu Sama.
But more than personnel, Fickell emphasized a cultural growth of the team.
“I’m standing here today in a lot different place than I was in the last three years and I really do mean that,” he said. “I don’t have all the answers, and I’m not saying that we’re someplace far off from where we have been, but what we are much different in is our leadership.”
Fickell believes the shift began during the final month of last season when UW scored two top-25 upsets: Washington and Illinois.
“We could have gone one direction or the other, and we were in a really tough situation, but there were some youth within our program that really started to grow and took over in a way that was really, really healthy for us,” he said, “and we had a group of veteran leaders that kind of understood what was happening and saw it and embraced that as well.”
The next challenge will be turning that leadership into a productive fall camp and start to the season.
The Badgers’ schedule isn’t as stacked as last season, but they open the season against Notre Dame at Lambeau Field on Sept. 6. The Fighting Irish are expected to be a top-five team in the nation.
Fickell understands the added urgency to open the season ready to play well.
“I’ve always been one of those guys that’s like, November is where it’s going and you’ve got to play your best ball at the end of the year,” he said. “But there’s a piece of this understanding you’ve got to come out of the gates and you’ve got to be able to play really, really well and at a high level, especially when you’re going to play games like this to kick the season off.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell addresses past struggles, promises improvement
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
