What Chris McIntosh leaving means for Luke Fickell and Wisconsin football
Chris McIntosh is leaving Wisconsin for a job with the Big Ten, creating uncertainty around Luke Fickell and the future of Badgers football.
There are moments in college athletics where a move happens on paper, but the ripple effects stretch far beyond a title change.
Chris McIntosh leaving the University of Wisconsin for a newly created deputy commissioner for strategy role with the Big Ten is one of those moments. And if you’re looking for where the impact will be felt most immediately, you don’t have to look far. It starts with Luke Fickell.
Whether anyone wants to say it out loud or not, those two have been tied together from the beginning.
McIntosh made the call to move on from Paul Chryst in 2022. He navigated the uncomfortable middle ground with Jim Leonhard, who served as interim head coach. Then he took the big swing, pulling Fickell away from Cincinnati on a seven-year deal that was supposed to usher in a new era of Wisconsin football. The expectation wasn’t subtle. Compete for championships. Modernize the program. Raise the ceiling.
Instead, three seasons in, Wisconsin sits at 17–21 overall and 10–17 in Big Ten play. That’s not just falling short. That’s a program that overpromised, underdelivered, and is now trying to dig itself out of a hole.
And now the guy who made the hire is gone. There’s also a fair question about timing. With the head coach he brought in entering what many see as a pivotal season, stepping away now leaves someone else to deal with the outcome of a direction that McIntosh helped set in motion.
