Why Wisconsin football stars, old and new, believe in Luke Fickell
The connective tissue between Wisconsin football winning big games and its path forward, sees the vision for Luke Fickell and the Wisconsin Badgers.
Madison, WI – With a field-storming 13-10 victory, in which a redshirt freshman punter led Wisconsin football in passing yards, the Badgers won a Big Ten conference game for the first time in 385 days. Regardless of how aesthetically pleasing it was or was not, getting a win “is great for the soul,” as head coach Luke Fickell said in his post-game press conference.
Wisconsin’s win over the Washington Huskies will not end all the criticism surrounding Fickell’s tenure in Madison. But it will, if only for a week, quiet that criticism as the Badgers nab their first victory over a ranked opponent in ten tries.
Needing three public votes of confidence in 47 days, Fickell has been humbled. The third-year head coach of Wisconsin remains underwater with a 15-19 overall record and is only 9-15 in conference. Fickell expressed “a mix of emotions” after beating Washington.
“I don’t ever want somebody to have to fight my battles,” Fickell added. “But I understand that that’s where we are.”
More than anything, that confidence from leadership above the football program, combined with a win on Saturday that made it feel like the Badgers escaped some Sisyphean fate, has perhaps ignited the flames with a spark of “competitive spirit” Wisconsin’s players desperately need.
“Our kids, they feel everything,” Fickell said. “They know everything. They internalize everything.”
Ben Barten rises with Luke Fickell leading Wisconsin football
“I did forget a little bit of what it was like to have that emotion and to see our guys with that emotion,” Fickell admitted after Wisconsin’s first win over a Big Ten opponent in over a year.
“You fight every single week. And sometimes you take the punches; sometimes you give ‘em,” Badgers defensive lineman Ben Barten said in an interview. “It felt damn good to give ‘em tonight.”
“This is a tough game. And you work incredibly, incredibly hard, no matter what the results are,” said Fickell. “But you have that ability to, you know, kind of have that emotion, not just for me, I mean, that’s one thing. I mean, I try not give it too much and have too much of it, but I’d much rather see it from our guys. And it is really good, not just for the soul. It’s good for the team and it’s good for everybody.”
“It’s a process. Everything is. If you cheat the process, the results aren’t what you want,” Barten added. “Coach Fick said to us, it’s like, if you stay to your process, it gives you the opportunity to win more games. If you cheat your process, it gets you guaranteed to lose more games.”
Barten serves as an unlikely connective thread through each of Wisconsin’s most recent conference victories. Early in the fourth quarter against Washington, the graduate student muscled his way forward against the Huskies’ field goal unit. By getting a hand on the ball, Barten helped maintain Wisconsin’s slim 13-10 lead.
It was the first time the Badgers had blocked a field goal since Barten got his hand on a try by Northwestern Wildcats kicker Luke Akers on October 19th, 2024 – Wisconsin’s last Big Ten win.
Beyond the coincidence of special teams circumstances, there are few, if any, players on this Badgers roster who have had such a dramatic rise between their first day on campus and the present day. Barten, at Stratford High School, won the Tim Krumrie Award (named for the former Wisconsin prep, Badgers, and Cincinnati Bengals standout) as Wisconsin’s top senior defensive lineman. When his time came to enroll with the Badgers under the Paul Chryst regime, however, he did so as an offensive lineman.
Never quite finding his footing on the offensive side of the ball, Barten finally made his Badgers debut in his third season. He played only one game under Chryst but found himself in a rotational role under interim head coach Jim Leonhard in 2022.
When Fickell arrived in Madison, everything changed. In the past three seasons, Barten has appeared in every game on Wisconsin’s defensive line.
“I don’t know if you’re going to see things like that as much in college football. Guys in a sixth year,” Fickell said of Barten’s unlikely rise. “When he tells me his story about not being able to play a lick his first couple, three years here, changing positions from offense to defense, which doesn’t normally happen.”
“I was in a very interesting situation with the last staff, and then came in and continued to work,” Barten said humbly. “And Coach Fickell gave me the opportunities. So I owe my, like, everything, I’ve done through football to Coach Fick. This staff–also the last staff, I do love them, too but–like, this staff has believed in me, so I’m just continuing to fight for them every day.”
“He says it. He goes, ‘I was a really bad football player,” Fickell said, retelling Barten’s story. “And to see where he was last year and where is this year, he’s got a chance to continue to play this game of football. And he gives us everything he’s got every single day, and I don’t know where we’d be without him. You know, he’s not a real vocal guy sometimes, but he’s a guy that people listen to and they look to.”
Cooper Catalano, Mason Posa, connect Wisconsin Badgers, young and old
As Barten connects Wisconsin’s wins, he does so as a leader on the front seven. His steady, veteran presence at nose tackle has allowed the young, talented linebacking duo of Mason Posa and Cooper Catalano to thrive behind him. Barten causes havoc in the middle of the line, allowing Catalano to finish the play with textbook tackling.
“I think [Barten] maybe has three or four, it might not go down, Cooper Catalano might get credit for the tackle, but let me tell you that Ben Barten is a big part of that,” Fickell said. “There’s nobody that’s been more consistent.”
Against Washington, Catalano racked up 19 total tackles–the most by any Badger since Mike Taylor recorded 22 against the Ohio State Buckeyes in 2011. Since at least 1995, no other Wisconsin freshman has totaled 19 tackles in a game. The previous-best mark over the past 30 years was TJ Edwards’ 16 against the Purdue Boilermakers in 2015.
Posa has his own nose for the ball. He became the first Badgers defender to force and recover a fumble all season, setting up Wisconsin’s lone touchdown drive of the day from the Huskies’ 7-yard line. Of Posa’s 11 tackles and 2.5 sacks, none were bigger than his game-sealing fourth-down stop, getting to Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr. behind the line of scrimmage.
“Those are very talented young kids,” Barten said of Posa and Catalano. “And honestly, I could say the word ‘young’ attached to it, but they’re just talented football players who are going to make plays.”
As impressed Barten is with the true freshman behind him, Catalano remains inspired by Wisconsin’s veteran front. Coupled together, they have the makings of the “complementary football” Fickell has so desperately been trying to get out of his team.
“It’s just a testament to our defense,” Catalano said. “We got a great front seven. We had a great game plan all week. With that, adding the extra bye week really helped us, I think. We were able to get tip sheets out, and we’d have that every week, but able to memorize those and just having a great two weeks of practice, and just getting better every day. And I think, like I said before, just a great testament to our whole defense and a bunch of guys flying to the ball.”
While Catalano spoke about his motivation to play for the seniors in front of him and it being “just great to see all the joy in everyone’s faces,” after the win, Barten walked past, giving the young linebacker a hearty pat on the shoulder.
A simple, “good job, Coop,” from one home-grown Badger to another was all it took to put an ear-to-ear grin on the Germantown native’s face.
“I mean, that right there!” Catalano exclaimed before saying he was “just glad we could get the win for the seniors.”
Barten has his reasons to support Fickell, but so does Catalano. Despite holding the Wisconsin state high school career tackling record by a country mile, Catalano, like Barten, was something of an under-the-radar consensus three-star prospect. Unlike Barten, however, Catalano has had the opportunity to make an instant impact in Madison.
“The whole locker room has been behind Coach Fick since day one,” Catalano said of University of Wisconsin Director of Athletics Chris McIntosh’s decision to retain Fickell in 2026. “So hearing that obviously reaffirmed us. And there’s nothing–there’s no surprise to us. Everyone here is excited about that, but it definitely motivated me.
“Hearing a lot of noise these past few weeks, it’s great to obviously get a win, but, obviously, just hearing, like I said, the outside noise from the weeks before, it’s nice to kind of deliver on that and just have a great game and execute like we did tonight.”
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