Luke Fickell Has Wisconsin Football Rolling Again

After a difficult 2025, Wisconsin football head coach Luke Fickell decided to take a short break from football. He needed time to decide whether he wanted to keep coaching and whether he could give his all to the Badgers.

Fickell's transition from Cincinnati to Wisconsin had been difficult. He only had one losing season, his first year in Cincinnati, and since then he had compiled a 53-10 record over his final five seasons at the helm. The move to Wisconsin felt like a match made in heaven. The Badgers had been struggling to get over the hump, and bringing in a guy like Fickell, who took Cincy to the four-team playoff, felt like a no-brainer.

Unfortunately, college football isn’t that simple, especially in the NIL era. Since fully stepping into his head coaching role at Wisconsin, it’s been the opposite of his time at Cincy: only one winning season in his first year in Madison. 2025 was truly a bottoming-out season for Fickell, finishing with 8 losses, something the Badgers hadn't done since 1987.

He’d been quite unlucky at Wisconsin, never having a fully healthy option at QB, limited alumni support, and a tough transition into the transfer portal and NIL era. Wisconsin was becoming a relic of the past, a school that could no longer keep its best talent in-state, and it was quickly sinking to the bottom of the Big Ten.

But as with everything in modern college football, things can change quickly. After a rocky week one against a tough Notre Dame, Wisconsin has ripped off four straight wins, including a massive come-from-behind road win at Penn State and a dominant home win over Michigan State. Wisconsin sits just outside the top-25 and has another chance to pick up a road Top-25 win over UCLA next week.

If you had asked me at the start of the year whether a Wisconsin-UCLA game would even matter, I’d probably have laughed it off, but both teams are in great position right now because Fickell has returned to Wisconsin-style football. What’s Wisconsin football? Running the damn ball.

Last week’s win over Michigan State was the first time we’d seen true Wisconsin football in years. They ran the ball 42 times, averaged 5.4 yards per carry, and controlled the game from start to finish.

The Badgers have three ranked games in a row over their next three weeks, and if they win two, I think any talk of a hot seat will die in Madison. College football is better when Wisconsin is a true power in the Big Ten, and I really hope Fickell is the guy to do that.