BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Five days before Wisconsin’s season opener, as rising enthusiasm reflected sky-high expectations, Luke Fickell pondered one question: What does success look like for Badgers football in the first year of a new regime?
Fickell, in his pragmatic way, did not want to document this success. But he made it clear that he expected his team to be at their best at the end of the year. To achieve this goal, we had to embrace the process and learn to be consistent and grow each week. And then he delivered this quote:
If we are in similar areas from Week 1 to Week 8, we will not be at our best at the end of the year. And if you don’t, it’s really hard to be successful and consider a season successful.
As the Wisconsin players walked off the field at Memorial Stadium on Saturday afternoon after losing 20-14 to a bad Indiana team, it was hard to say that the Badgers were better in any area than they were earlier in the season. Wisconsin missed a golden opportunity to stay in the hunt for a mediocre Big Ten West Division race thanks to poor performance across the board that allowed Indiana – 2-21 in conference games since 2021 – to beat the Badgers in Bloomington for the first time to beat 21 years.
We’ve passed the Week 8 mark. And nine games into Fickell’s first season with Wisconsin, the Badgers are still nowhere near where they thought they would be and don’t seem to have any answers on how to get out of this hole.
“I think that’s what keeps you awake at night, at least for me,” Fickell said after the game. “Can you find a way to play your best ball at the end of the year? Is your trend towards getting better? There are many factors to getting better, but consistency has a lot to do with it. The execution has a lot to do with it.
“If you go out and get hit, you get hit. It stinks, but it’s part of the game. Give them credit. They fought hard, they made some big plays, they did a really good job of generating energy and we didn’t get it done.”
Indiana hadn’t beaten Wisconsin in Bloomington since 2002. (Ken Ruinard/USA Today)
Injuries have taken their toll in Wisconsin. This fact cannot be denied. Wisconsin played against Indiana without, among other things, its two best running backs (Braelon Allen and Chez Mellusi), one of its best wide receivers (Chimere Dike) and its starting quarterback (Tanner Mordecai). Kicker Nathanial Vakos battled an undisclosed injury that prevented Fickell from sending him out on three field goal attempts of more than 50 yards. But Fickell refused to use those injuries as an excuse, citing the lack of performance from players who should be well-prepared to perform.
The next football team that did not suffer any injuries during the season will be the first. Good teams find ways to win despite all odds. And these Badgers don’t play like a good team.
“I didn’t expect that,” said security hunter Wohler. “Given the talent we have and the dressing room we have, expectations are obviously high at the start of the year. We weren’t good on Saturdays. All the work we put in in the off-season and every single week to make sure it doesn’t translate on Saturday hurts. We have to find a way. We have three games left to get this thing together and make something happen.”
It was easy to explain the Badgers’ first three losses. Wisconsin lost its first road game against Washington State, but turned it into a win in the second half as the transition to a new system began. Wisconsin failed to score a touchdown at home against Iowa, but the Hawkeyes had a stingy defense and knocked Mordecai out midway through the game with a broken right hand. Wisconsin lost to undefeated Ohio State but trailed by just one touchdown in the fourth quarter.
This was unjustifiable. Indiana’s only wins this season came against winless FCS opponent Indiana State and an Akron team that picked up two wins in four overtimes. The Hoosiers entered the second half down 67 points in Big Ten games this season, the worst of any FBS team in conference play.
The frustration was clear on Fickell’s face, who is not used to losing. He went 4-8 in his first year in Cincinnati and then won at least nine games each of the next five seasons. Fickell is still looking for a way to pull Wisconsin out of a slump that has now spanned nearly four straight seasons. During his post-game speech in the locker room, he said he was tough on the team.
“But I also understand that they’ve been through a lot,” Fickell said. “From last year maybe and the year before that and the ups and downs. We just can’t keep going back to some of the things we’ve always done. This game is about finding ways to achieve the goal. Regardless of whether we didn’t play well enough, we can all see that.
“But we still had a chance at the end to find a way to win the game. This is becoming a recurring theme for us and as a coach I have to find a way to get us over this hurdle. It’s not just about making plays. It’s like, ‘Hey, what’s the recipe for finding ways to close?’ And we didn’t do that well enough.”
Safety Austin Brown was asked if the loss weighed on Fickell and replied, “I would definitely say yes. I think it takes its toll on all of us.”
Where will the answers come from, if not this season, then in the future? With the Big Ten moving to an 18-team league with no divisions next season, achieving success will be harder, not easier. Wisconsin’s 2024 schedule includes league games against USC, Penn State and Oregon, as well as Alabama in nonconference play.
Wisconsin needs help in recruiting and the transfer portal as its current staff hasn’t shown enough consistency. Maybe another year will help to understand the nuances of different systems. But as this season has shown, there are no guarantees. All the excitement in the world didn’t stop Wisconsin from falling to 5-4 overall and 3-3 in the Big Ten.
GO DEEPER
Lessons from Wisconsin: Problems in the running game, passing attack was not enough to compensate for the loss in Indiana
Wisconsin’s Air Raid offense under offensive coordinator Phil Longo has yet to demonstrate its potential on a regular basis. Without Allen or Mellusi, Wisconsin was forced to turn to Nos. 3 and 4 tailbacks Jackson Acker and Cade Yacamelli, who combined for 21 carries for 96 yards against the Big Ten’s worst run defense. Longo gave the play to quarterback Braedyn Locke, who threw the ball 41 times. He has passed at least 39 times in each of his first three career starts.
Since replacing Mordecai, Locke has flashed at times, scoring five touchdowns with just one interception. But he only completed half of his throws and too often didn’t give his receivers a chance to make a play. During one stretch of the first half against Indiana, he had six passes broken up while only completing five. He missed receiver Will Pauling in the right flat on a fourth-and-2 late in the game, leading to a critical turnover on downs with Wisconsin trailing 17-14.
“I think everyone has to look in the mirror and make a decision about what it’s going to be,” Locke said. “I think we’ll all respond to it and you’ll see a different team.”
Wisconsin averages just 23.6 points per game. In no season in which Longo has been offensive coordinator in the past 11 years, including stops at Division II Slippery Rock, FCS Sam Houston, Ole Miss or North Carolina, has his offense averaged fewer than 32.8 points per game scored. You’d have to go back to 2007 at Minnesota Duluth (22.5 points) to find a worse offensive year for Longo.
Wisconsin’s defense, meanwhile, buckled when it mattered most. The Badgers allowed the Hoosiers to roll right down the field for a touchdown on their first drive and allowed big passing plays on two third-and-long situations. When Wisconsin cut the deficit to 10-7 late in the second quarter, Indiana scored another touchdown. And late in the game, the defense couldn’t get off the field and allowed a field goal that made the final score. Wisconsin actually edged Indiana 344-261. But too many penalties and mistakes in critical moments cost the Badgers, as they have in several games this season.
“It’s always the little things that become big things,” inside linebacker Maema Njongmeta said. “Whether it’s a penalty or creating opportunities for them on the field, one third at a time. Or you don’t let your feet move so hard during a tackle that you get five instead of three. These things add up over a game, over a quarter. There is death by a thousand cuts.”
As the first year nears its end, it is becoming clear that Wisconsin is not playing its best football, and that affects everyone in the program. The hope is that Fickell can eventually engineer the kind of turnaround he was brought to Madison to create, although it will clearly take longer than he or the Badgers wanted.
(Top photo: James Black / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)