There was plenty for the University of Wisconsin football program to like about the first 30 minutes of its season opener against No. 4 Notre Dame.
The problem was everything that followed.
Wisconsin went into halftime trailing only 13-10 before being outscored 28-3 in the second half of a 41-13 loss at Lambeau Field. The Badgers missed tackles, struggled to run the football, and couldn’t consistently get Notre Dame into the third-and-long situations where their defense had been most effective. Luke Fickell didn’t exactly help matters, either, coaching conservatively enough at times that he seemed more concerned with avoiding making a big mistake than doing what was needed to win.
Now comes a considerably different test.
Western Illinois visits Camp Randall on Saturday night, and Wisconsin will enter as an overwhelming favorite. That means Week 2 isn’t really about proving the Badgers can compete with their opponent. It’s about proving some of what they showed against Notre Dame can become repeatable.
Here are three takeaways from Luke Fickell’s Week 2 media availability.
Wisconsin needs to prove its first-half physicality can last for 4 quarters
Fickell’s explanation for the second-half collapse became a little clearer after watching the film.
He doesn’t believe Wisconsin physically ran out of gas. Instead, Fickell pointed toward the mental and emotional toll of playing such a high-level opponent with somewhere between 15 and 17 new starters.
“I don’t want to say the youth, but the newness of our ability to do that for 60 minutes of what we did in the first half showed up in the second half of the game in particular,” Fickell said. “But there’s a lot of really good things that we’re going to grow from.”
Wisconsin held Notre Dame to 29 rushing yards on 16 attempts in the first half. By the end, the Irish had 111, and the Badgers struggled to get off the field because they stopped winning first and second down.
The tackling deteriorated with it.
“Second half took a toll on us,” Fickell admitted. “And in some ways, we made some mistakes that were really, really difficult to overcome, especially against a great football team. But all in all, in that second half, I think we just wore down a bit too much. The physicality showed up a little bit.”
Western Illinois isn’t going to recreate the environment or come close to the talent level Wisconsin just faced. But that’s almost beside the point.
The Badgers need to show they can play with the same physicality and attention to detail from start to finish regardless of who is standing across from them. There can’t be another stretch where one mistake turns into several.
Fickell doesn’t want Wisconsin changing its standard because the opponent changed
This is probably the most important part of Saturday night.
Wisconsin shouldn’t need to prove much against Western Illinois beyond being the team it says it wants to be every week. Fickell was asked whether dominance matters in these kinds of nonconference games, particularly after several closer-than-expected home games during his tenure.
His answer came back to identity.
“Being dominant in every game is going to be important,” Fickell said. “I think the most important thing is that you really kind of focus on who you need to be and who you want to be.”
That sounds obvious, but Wisconsin hasn’t consistently done it under Fickell.
The Badgers have spent the better part of three years searching for something they can hang their hat on every Saturday. For one half against Notre Dame, we saw a version of it. Wisconsin was disruptive defensively, played physically up front, and looked comfortable on a big stage.
Now it needs to show that wasn’t opponent-dependent.
“We’ve got to make sure that we’re building an identity of all that we have to do, and it has to show each and every one,” Fickell said. “And however that’s going to unfold in a game, in particular Saturday night, it’s going to unfold. But we’ve got to continue to battle at what it is that we need to do and what we need to be, and that’s got to be shown on Saturday.”
That’s the assignment against Western Illinois.
Don’t chase a score. Put the identity on film.
Wisconsin’s response to adversity starts before Saturday
Fickell said after the Notre Dame loss that Wisconsin’s season “really begins now.”
His point wasn’t that the opener didn’t matter. It was that this is the first opportunity to see how a roster with so many new pieces responds after getting punched in the mouth. Some would argue the adversity was happening in real time during that second half against Notre Dame, but if the best time to respond was then, the second-best time is now.
And that evaluation is underway.
“There’s a hell of a lot of maturity and discipline involved in handling adversity,” Fickell said.
Fickell said coaches will be watching how players prepare, how injured players handle a shortened week, and whether the next man up on the depth chart approaches his opportunity with the same seriousness.
“We look for the guys that prepare in a very similar way,” Fickell said. “We look for guys that take everything as seriously as it was last week. That’ll tell us a lot about the discipline and maturity of our team.”
Saturday shouldn’t teach us a whole lot about Wisconsin.
It should, however, tell us whether the Badgers learned anything from Notre Dame. The opponent is different. The standard can’t be.
Wisconsin will return to Camp Randall Stadium for its home opener against Western Illinois on Saturday, Sept. 12, at 6:15 p.m. CT on BTN. For the Badgers, this is less about simply getting into the win column and more about looking like the better team from start to finish.
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