Luke Fickell in Wisconsin: The badgers raise their ceiling

RJ Young

FOX Sports College football analyst

Wisconsin went shopping at the College Football Surplus and came back with an armory, fit to spit, pointy toes, dressed for rodeo and ready to kick in the door of the Big Ten.

In suit and boots, the badgers have had enough. They let go of the good so they can grow up.

In seven seasons and five games, former Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst set a 67–26 record, while winning 10 games or more in four of his first five seasons at Madison.

In his best year as head coach, he led the Badgers to a 13-0 regular season, falling just short of winning the Big Ten title in a 27-21 loss to Ohio State. In his last full season as head coach, 2021, he won nine games.

But that wasn’t enough. The man who played quarterback at Wisconsin—and went on to become a tight coach and offensive coordinator there—helped build and maintain a steady excellence at Camp Randall, an excellence that had been going on for nearly three decades. As a reward, he was sacked after a 2-3 start to the 2022 season.

Luke Fickell raises the ceiling in Wisconsin

RJ Young shares insights on Luke Fickell’s debut season in Wisconsin.

But Chryst’s success in Wisconsin didn’t take the Badgers beyond a Big Ten championship, or a bid for the College Football Playoff, and certainly not any national titles.

In a world where TCU finished runners-up for the national title and took 51 to Big Ten champion Michigan, Michigan took 45 to Ohio State in The Shoe, and Ohio State took 52 to Wisconsin, the powers that would be reached broke point.

In a world where the CFP expands from four to 12 teams and the Big Ten grows to 16 teams – all within a year – the Badgers buyer set out to find the person who could coach their football team into the thin air of winning conferences titles, play in the GVB and compete for a national championship.

Naturally, they settled on a former Buckeye to lead them.

The reason Wisconsin hired Luke Fickell as head ball coach is precisely because he’s done the two things the Badgers haven’t done: make the College Football Playoff and win a national title.

He did both of those things as an assistant at Ohio State, sure, but more impressively he led Cincinnati to a CFP roster before Wisconsin could even smell an invite. So naturally a program with the third most wins in the sport without a national title would look for a man who electrically slid into the CFP with a blasphemous Group of 5 program.

And he has brought men who many believe can take down the devil in Georgia.

Fickell has bet on two coordinators, Mike Tressel and Phil Longo, who know that if you’re going to play with the big boys in the South, let alone those Texas Playboys, you better have a fiddle in the band.

Your offense better be as explosive as Charlie Daniels standing next to Bob Wills. Your defense is better able to stop an attack dead and howling, like Sara Watkins on “Long Hot Summer Day.”

Tressel’s defense is a carryover from Fickell’s 2021 and 2022 Cincy squads. He began coaching at South Dakota, became a graduate assistant on Ohio State’s national title team in 2002, and left for Michigan State in 2004 with Mark Dantonio.

My understanding is that Tressel’s plan is going to look more like a 3-4 for anything larger than 11 staff. Put another way, it will be the same defense that led consensus All-American, All-Pro and NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Sauce Gardner and All-American 2021 Thorpe Award winner Coby Bryant.

And that defense – which I’m sure will run on grain alcohol – will get faster than John Lee Pettimore flying down “Copperhead Road” in a big Black Dodge and playing against Longo’s offense in practice.

When Mack Brown said he was coming back to coach at North Carolina, he called Lincoln Riley and Kliff Kingsbury to ask which offensive coordinator to get.

“I want to be Oklahoma. That’s the offense I want to run,” he told Sports Illustrated in 2019. Both Riley and Kingsbury said to go get Phil Longo.

Longo turned former UNC QB Sam Howell into the top ACC quarterback north of Clemson and made Drake Maye a Heisman frontrunner this season.

In fact, Maye is the sixth QB since 2010 to throw for 4,000 yards and 35 TDs, as well as rush for 650 yards with seven TDs in a season. The others? Kyler Murray, Deshaun Watson, Marcus Mariota, Johnny Manziel and RG3. That’s four Heisman winners and Deshaun Watson.

Now Longo and former UNC O-line coach Jack Bicknell Jr. in Madison. And the running game? Longo and Bicknell turned former UNC RBs Michael Carter and Javonte Williams into the best backfield in the sport since Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon at OU.

Think what Longo, Bicknell and Fickell could do with a passing game to complement junior Braelon Allen in the backfield, who has enjoyed 1,200-yard, 11-TD back-to-back seasons.

After joining the team last season when bowl practice began prior to the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, Fickell drove Allen and Chez Mellusi for 38 rushes and 193 yards in a 24-17 victory against Oklahoma State.

Wideout CJ Williams is expected to be one of the Badgers’ top receiving targets. A four-star from powerhouse Mater Dei, he transferred to Wisconsin after spending his freshman year at USC. Just ask Josh Downs or Dazz Newsome what that could mean for Big Ten DBs. Just ask CeeDee or Dede what the hell that could be.

Enter Tanner Mordecai – a man who first signed to play QB for Riley at OU in 2018 – and put up back-to-back seasons of at least 3,500 pass yards, 30 TDs and 12 or fewer INTs for Southern Methodist. Another former Oklahoma QB, Nick Evers bids his time behind Mordecai on his way to camp.

If you feel an offense sent forth by the demonic love child of Riley’s Oklahoma and Longo’s North Carolina, and a defense with more kick-ass than a murderous mule, just wait until you see Wisconsin chasing shutouts and applying rules.