During one of Luke Fickell’s first press conferences as
Wisconsin’s new football coach last month, I asked him what I thought was a relatively innocuous question: What is your level of concern about fielding a competitive team for the bowl game knowing how many people, including the Badgers’ three captains, won’t be playing?
Fickell’s answer — an impassioned and thoughtful one — provided me with my first up-close window into how he operates and taught me a valuable lesson: Never question Fickell about competitiveness.
“I don’t worry one bit about can we be competitive or not?” Fickell said. “The whole objective is to win. It’s not be competitive. Whether I’m just walking in the door, it would be a complete disrespect to every one of those kids sitting in those seats to think that they were brought here but yet we don’t think that they can even have a competitive advantage on the field with a really good football team. I don’t think that’s a thought in anybody’s head. I know it’s not a thought in my head.”
Two weeks later, Wisconsin beat
Oklahoma State 24-17 to capture the Guaranteed Rate Bowl.
That snippet is relevant today — and likely for as long as Fickell remains Wisconsin’s coach — because it highlights his fiery approach to the job: How you do anything is how you do everything. And with Fickell, it all comes down to giving the Badgers the absolute best opportunity to succeed.
“The beauty of Luke is that I don’t care if it’s a tiddlywinks game, he wants to win,” former
Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, who hired Fickell as an assistant two decades ago, told me last month. “I don’t care if it’s a card game. I don’t care if it’s a wrestling match, if it’s a football game. There will be nothing in his mind other than winning.”
Or, as former Cincinnati center and recent Wisconsin transfer addition
Jake Renfro put it: “He doesn’t want to lose at rock, paper, scissors. He is ultra-competitive. But that’s the type of guy you want to play for, someone who demands that competitiveness.”
Fickell wouldn’t have accepted the Wisconsin job if he didn’t believe he could help lead the Badgers to championships on both the Big Ten and national level. In fact, one of his first comments as Badgers coach was to inform the public that, “We’ve got one objective and one goal, and it’s to play for a championship.” And while championships aren’t won in the offseason, his first six weeks on the job have demonstrated a commitment to excellence and competitiveness in recruiting and roster management that has generated more excitement at Wisconsin than we’ve seen in years.
The college football landscape certainly has changed with the addition of the transfer portal, essentially creating free agency in the sport. That makes what’s happening now an apples-to-oranges comparison to so many previous years. Still, you’d be hard-pressed to find an offseason quite like this one, spearheaded by a relentless effort on the recruiting trail that has invigorated the fan base and shown how seriously Fickell is about winning.
Each time Fickell tweets the same 15-second Wisconsin graphic with the hashtag #OnWisconsin as part of a coordinated commitment reveal, it sends Badgers supporters into hysterics, waiting to see which player posts his commitment graphic in the next 30 minutes. Fickell has done so four times since Thursday, preceding the public commitment announcements of
Temple defensive end transfer
Darian Varner,
Cincinnati offensive linemen transfers
Joe Huber and Renfro and, on Monday morning,
Michigan State defensive end/outside linebacker transfer
Jeff Pietrowski.
Varner has two years of eligibility remaining and was a first-team All-American Athletic Conference performer last season. Renfro, a first-team All-AAC player in 2021 for Fickell when Cincinnati became the first Group of 5 team to reach the College Football Playoff, has three years remaining and picked Wisconsin over
LSU as perhaps the top center available in the portal. Huber, a starter at right tackle for the Bearcats last season, gives Wisconsin O-line depth. Pietrowski played in 23 games and finished second on the
Spartans in sacks two seasons ago.
“Get ready,” Renfro’s dad, Rick, told me. “That’s all I’ve got to say. Fick pulls the best out of the guys that he has underneath him. There’s excitement with Fick and what he brings to the table with his players. You see it happening already in how many weeks he’s been here. It’s almost contagious.”
Even though Fickell has said he doesn’t want to be a team that relies too heavily on transfers, he also recognized that Wisconsin needed to add some critical pieces. In less than a week, Fickell has addressed two of his biggest needs on the offensive and defensive lines. In total, he has added seven transfers (and counting).
Boston College defensive back
Jason Maitre is the other defender.
That doesn’t even factor in what Fickell is doing to remake the offense. He hired offensive coordinator Phil Longo to ignite the Badgers passing attack, which has
attracted top talent at the quarterback position in a way that people haven’t traditionally associated with Wisconsin. Longo has helped to bring in two former four-star quarterbacks, a starter in Year 1 as a sixth-year senior (
SMU’s
Tanner Mordecai) and someone capable of taking the reins immediately afterward (Oklahoma’s
Nick Evers). He also has a commitment from
four-star 2024 quarterback Mabrey Mettauer.
Now, Fickell and Co. have their sights set on upgrading at wide receiver. Potential additions include
USC transfer C.J. Williams, a four-star and top-10 receiver in the 2022 class, and
Oklahoma State transfer
Bryson Green, the team’s second-leading receiver last season. Cincinnati transfer receivers
Quincy Burroughs and
Will Pauling also are coming off campus visits.
What Fickell and his staff have accomplished in such a short timeframe is remarkable. Fickell added six high school prospects in the 2023 recruiting class to turn a group that was down to eight commits into a 14-man class. Two of those players, Braedyn Moore and Amare Snowden, both were former Cincinnati commits who are four-star defensive back prospects. Wisconsin had never before signed two four-star defensive backs in the same recruiting class during the internet ranking era. Fickell also is still in hot pursuit of defensive lineman Jamel Howard, a Wisconsin decommit under the previous staff, who is deciding between
Michigan and Wisconsin for the February signing period.
Three key examples of Fickell’s competitive approach already come to mind on the recruiting trail. Fickell had an advantage in December by hiring staffers who could focus solely on recruiting while the previous coaches led practices and prepared Wisconsin for its bowl game, and that new group didn’t waste a day. As a result, staffers visited 2023 cornerback Jonas Duclona three times in a two-week span in Naples, Fla., including the day after he returned from an official campus visit to ensure he committed to Wisconsin. Duclona, who initially committed to Cincinnati under Fickell, was selected to play in the prestigious All-American Bowl and became someone the staff didn’t want to lose.
“That means a lot because if they really wanted me that much, I know we built a great relationship and that’s where I need to be,” Duclona said.
Fickell and receivers coach Mike Brown didn’t give up on wide receiver Trech Kekahuna, even after he committed to Arizona on a Saturday — four days before the early signing period began. Kekahuna, a one-time Wisconsin commit under the previous staff, flipped to Wisconsin in a signing day surprise.
And then there is the story of Varner, who competed against Fickell in the same conference while Fickell was at Cincinnati. Varner told me Fickell contacted him on a Sunday, three days before the early signing period began. He committed to
Virginia Tech — a non-binding commitment by a transfer until he enrolls in classes and steps foot on campus — and Fickell didn’t stop pursuing Varner for 18 days until he landed a commitment Thursday night following a campus visit.
“Coach Fick talked to me every day,” Varner said. “We didn’t let a day go past without having a conversation.”
That type of relationship is not uncommon with Fickell during recruiting or once players arrive to play for him. Renfro, who spent three seasons with Fickell at Cincinnati and entered the transfer portal Dec. 1, said he talked every day during this process to Fickell, as well as former Cincinnati strength coach Brady Collins, whom Fickell brought with him to Wisconsin. He also spoke each day to offensive line coach Jack Bicknell Jr. once he was hired from North Carolina.
“It’s unbelievable,” Renfro said. “That’s kind of just what coach Fick does. He’s that leader. He’s that great man that everybody wants to play for. He demands respect. He demands hard work and a great attitude every day.
“But that gets the players excited because you get to go into work every day and be excited about what you’re doing. It’s always different. He’s always changing it up. Who wouldn’t want to play for coach Fickell? You can’t say no to the man.”
Wisconsin, coming off a 7-6 season, still has a long way to go to win championships, as Fickell hopes. In order to do so, the Badgers must recruit and develop at a championship level. That doesn’t mean Wisconsin is going to rival Ohio State in terms of four- and five-star commitments every year (the Buckeyes just signed 19 such players to the Badgers’ three).
But Fickell, who spent 15 seasons at Ohio State, seems to understand what it takes to put Wisconsin in the best position possible by upgrading at key positions to make a run at titles with the Big Ten and College Football Playoff set to expand. His competitive drive won’t allow him to settle for anything less.
