MADISON, Wis. — Luke Fickell was deep into a 30-minute conversation in his office last week when he used two words that highlighted what he believed to be part of the problem during his first two seasons as Wisconsin’s football coach: arrogance and delusion.
There are far more issues at play when a team is 12-13 under its coach, including 8-10 in the Big Ten, and coming off the program’s first losing season and missed bowl game opportunity in 23 years. And Fickell was willing to go there, too. But from a big-picture perspective, this is where he starts.
I know the arrogance I would kick myself for is coming in and thinking, ‘OK now, we’re the best in the Big Ten West,’” Fickell said. “And everybody in that locker room, because of the history of the last 15 years, would say we’re the best in the West. And the truth of the matter is we’re not.
“I know it’s not the Big Ten West anymore. But it’s that idea of let’s just humble ourselves and let’s go and work our way back and figure out how coach (Barry) Alvarez and them took this place to become the best in the West. And let’s get ourselves to that point and then everything else will take care of itself. It’s not the best 11, it’s the 11 best that do s— together that give us a chance, the same way they built it here over the last 25 years.”
Fickell’s hiring at Wisconsin in November 2022 was met with enthusiasm because of his accomplishments at Cincinnati, where he became the only coach of a Group of 5 program to reach the four-team College Football Playoff. The Badgers were a few years removed from closing the previous decade with six Big Ten Championship Game appearances, and the aim was to restore that expectation and vie for a future spot in the 12-team Playoff field.
But two years into Fickell’s tenure, the Badgers haven’t competed at a championship level and haven’t won hardly any game of consequence. Fickell is 0-6 against AP Top 25 teams, and he has beaten just three opponents that finished the season with a winning record: Rutgers twice and FCS South Dakota.
