David Hookstead
Videos by OutKick
Wisconsin football coach Luke Fickell is leaving no doubt the Badgers will look very different when the 2023 season opens.
Hype in Madison is off the charts for Luke Fickell and a new era of Badgers football. After three incredibly disappointing seasons, the slate has been wiped clean and Fickell has been tasked with bringing the team’s style of play into the 21st century.
The two biggest adjustments were bringing in QB Tanner Mordecai and hiring Phil Longo as OC. Anyone paying attention knew the days of three yards and a cloud of dust were dead as soon as Fickell was hired.
Wisconsin will look “different” under Luke Fickell.
Now, he’s going out of his way to mentally prepare fans to see something Wisconsin fans have never seen before:
An offense that will be throwing the ball all over the place.
“It will look different. We all hopefully understand that and brace ourselves for that. It definitely looks different, but I don’t think when you really get down to it, the brass tacks of things, that it’s that much different. It’s still about the game that’s won up front. It’s still about the big guys. Yes, it might be a little more balanced. You know, if Wisconsin in the past had been a little bit more balanced, a little more run than a pass, it might be the same thing pass to run, but it’s going to be balanced. It’s going to be physical. It’s going to start with the ability to run the football. It’s just going to be in different ways, and I think that’s the uniqueness,” Fickell told Josh Pate during an interview at Big Ten Media Days.
You can check out the full interview below.
Welcome to a new era of Wisconsin football.
The old ways developed under former AD and coach Barry Alvarez were great for the Wisconsin Badgers for a long time. Wisconsin has won a lot of games since the Alvarez era started in the 1990s.
Unfortunately, the inability to throw the ball at a high level capped Wisconsin’s ceiling as a team that could regularly win double digit games but never punch into the elite tier with Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia.
Adapt or die. The Badgers chose to adapt and Luke Fickell will put a completely re-tooled offense on the field.
Braelon Allen will still be in the mix.
While the Badgers will definitely sling the ball around in Phil Longo’s offense with Tanner Mordecai, Braelon Allen is still in the backfield.
He’s one of the best running backs in America, and Fickell would be a fool to not utilize him. Judging from his comments, Allen will still get plenty of work.
It will just look different. What does that mean? It likely means Wisconsin will spread things out and stop defenses from loading up the box.
Badgers fans, myself included, will find out week one against Buffalo. Can’t wait. The hype is deafening and that’s what makes college football so awesome.
ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz. See you at the end of the year. Look out for that boat.