I’ve seen enough of the Luke Fickell era at Wisconsin. Frankly, I saw enough a long time ago.
I bought into the hype when the University of Wisconsin football program hired Fickell in November 2022. Most of us did. He had built Cincinnati into a College Football Playoff program, won at a place where winning at that level wasn’t supposed to happen, and looked like the kind of hire that could take the Badgers somewhere Paul Chryst couldn’t.
I understood the decision. I believed in the vision. I thought the program’s foundation was rock solid. Then the games started.
Anyone with two functioning eyes could see the warning signs back in 2023. By the end of 2024, I was out on Fickell. Not because I wanted Fickell to fail, but because he’d shown me what his program looked like too many times to keep pretending the next Saturday would be different.
Suppose you’ve stuck with Fickell this long, good for you. That’s a level of blind faith that I simply don’t possess. If the occasional ranked win convinced you Wisconsin had finally turned the corner, I understand wanting to believe. Even so, I’m not sure how many more times you can watch the same movie and convince yourself the ending is going to change.
At some point, believing in the process becomes an exercise in ignoring the results. You’ve got to stop confusing fool’s gold with progress. And after Wisconsin’s 24-21 loss to Maryland, I don’t know what else anyone needs to see.
The record tells you everything the slogans won’t
Four years into Fickell’s tenure, he is 23-25 overall and 14-20 in Big Ten play, with 12 losses to unranked opponents.
And it’s not just that Wisconsin is losing. It’s how often the Badgers haven’t even been competitive. Since 2023, Wisconsin has lost 12 games by at least 17 points, including eight games by 24 or more and five by 30-plus. Those aren’t narrow defeats where a few plays made the difference.
Those aren’t growing pains. That’s the résumé.
Remember all the talk about competitive maturity? Complementary football? Closing the gap? Climbing the mountain? Well, Wisconsin has spent the better part of four years climbing a mountain that apparently gets taller every time Fickell opens his mouth.
The Badgers haven’t closed the gap. They’ve spent considerable stretches looking like the gap itself. Iowa has outscored Wisconsin 124-16 in four meetings under Fickell. The last two ended 37-0 and 30-0.
That’s not a rivalry anymore. That’s an annual reminder of how far Wisconsin has fallen from the standard it once established.
And the embarrassing losses extend well beyond Iowa.
Northwestern walked into Camp Randall and won in 2023. The Badgers lost to Indiana on the road in 2023, before Curt Cignetti arrived and made them relevant. Minnesota took Paul Bunyan’s Axe in 2024, capping Wisconsin’s first season without a bowl appearance in more than two decades. Maryland beat the Badgers by 17 points at home in 2025. Those are just a few of the nominees for most embarrassing loss under Fickell.
Then came Saturday.
A 3-6 Maryland team, playing without its starting quarterback, committed 11 penalties for 111 yards and still beat Wisconsin. The Badgers produced 201 yards of offense, lost three fumbles, and surrendered 10 points in the final 2:11. That’s the Fickell era in a nutshell. An opponent does everything it can to lose, and this football team somehow finds a way to be even worse.
