What we learned from Luke Fickell before Wisconsin football takes on Michigan
Wisconsin heads into its matchup with No. 20 Michigan battling injuries, offensive line uncertainty, and a run defense facing its biggest test yet.
The Wisconsin football team went into the bye week at 2–2 overall and 0–1 in Big Ten play, a record that isn’t terrible on paper, all things considered, but one that left the program staring into the mirror.
This wasn’t just about resting bodies. The bye landed at a point when the staff, the players, and the program itself had to take a serious look inward and regroup, knowing full well what challenges lie ahead on the schedule.
“People always ask, is this a good time for the bye?” Luke Fickell said. “I would say, in some ways, yes, but sometimes things linger when you have a bye week. I would say, for all intents and purposes, we did what we needed to do, coming off this bye week.
“We got reps for guys that needed to get reps, we got opportunities to look ourselves in the face, and figure out what we need to do a lot better. And also, giving guys the opportunity to, I say minor injuries, but hopefully things that can heal up in a week or two, giving them the opportunity to heal up.”
Wisconsin isn’t just dealing with the sting of a slow start; they’re doing it while juggling several key injuries and leaning on young players who weren’t expected to be in these roles back in fall camp. That’s part of the growing pains, and it explains why the path forward won’t be flashy. For the Badgers, it’s about pounding the rock, stacking small wins, weathering mistakes, and trusting that the repetition eventually breaks through.
“There’s a process to getting better. We have to see some of those steps to getting better, but there’s no way of doing it if you can’t stay together,” Fickell said. “You can’t keep your mind going in a direction, I can’t always say positive, but going in a direction that gives us a chance to get better.”
That’s the crux of it heading into Michigan: there’s no magic fix for the Wisconsin Badgers right now, just incremental progress.
With that in mind, here’s what we learned from Fickell ahead of Saturday’s Week 6 matchup against No. 20 Michigan.
The injury picture
The biggest question is who will actually be available for Wisconsin.
Senior safety Preston Zachman, one of the best players on the defense, won’t be back because he’s still in a boot and using a push scooter. In his absence, former Division III standout Matt Jung drew the start against Maryland, getting his first real shot at extended snaps, and by all indications, he’s going to see plenty more while Zachman is sidelined.
Behind him, Matthew Traynor looks like the next man up in the rotation and could see his role expand after limited action thus far. That leaves Austin Brown carrying even more responsibility. He’s already playing at a high level, but without Zachman’s experience and steadiness next to him, the pressure on Brown to stabilize the secondary grows even larger.
At quarterback, Billy Edwards Jr. is trending doubtful, and it feels unlikely we see him against Michigan after grossly mismanaging his injury against Maryland, where he tweaked his knee and was forced to exit. Danny O’Neil has been taking the majority of the first team reps in practice and looks like the favorite to start. Jake Renfro’s status is very much up in the air. And at running back, redshirt freshman Dilin Jones is making progress, but even if he’s not fully ready, expect to see a heavy dose of Darrion Dupree.
Fickell was blunt about where things stand.
“Zachman, he’ll be out,” Fickell admitted. “He’s not a guy that we’ll get back just yet. The other guys: Billy Edwards, Jake Renfro, Dilin Jones, we don’t know. We’ll go out there and see where those guys are at. Most of those guys did not do much last week. Dilin did a little bit. I think he ran pretty well, not in contact situations. I hope, and we hope to get all those guys back. But I think that we have to be smart, but the preparation for saying, hopefully we have those guys, but obviously a lot of unknowns.”
The Billy Edwards Jr. lesson
Edwards’ injury situation continues to linger because of what happened in the Maryland game. The transfer quarterback pushed to play before he was truly ready, and the staff let him. Fickell didn’t duck accountability.
“I said to you guys several times we’d have to save him from himself,” Fickell said. “And in some ways, that’s probably what I would say I didn’t do. I didn’t save him from himself with that game, wanting to play, expecting to play, preparing to play. The truth of the matter is, he probably wasn’t in a position where he was ready to play. And you know, that’s what we have to do a better job of... Is Billy good? I don’t know right now. We’ve just got to be able to see, because that’s one of those things that each week, they’re better, but how much better are they?”
It’s a lesson that the staff must carry forward. When Fickell’s starting quarterback goes wire-to-wire, Wisconsin is 9–3. When a backup steps in to start or finish a game, they’re 6–12. Stability at the game’s most important position has been nonexistent. I get why this staff feels desperate. However, Edwards’ health is crucial if this team wants to fix its offense. Playing him before he’s ready does more harm than good.
And here’s the reality: it was a mistake from the start. Going into a winnable game against Maryland with a two-quarterback system and a starter who wasn’t close to 100 percent was a poor decision. Fickell himself admitted the staff needed to protect Edwards from himself, then did the exact opposite. Edwards, trying to return from a knee sprain too soon, gutted it out for six offensive snaps before limping off after a rollout to avoid pressure.
The intent may have been to let him play against his former team in a game the Badgers badly needed, but the result was malpractice. It wasn’t fair to Edwards, who clearly wasn’t healthy, and it wasn’t fair to Danny O’Neil, who didn’t get the full preparation he should have for a game in which he ultimately had to run the entire offense.
This isn’t about questioning toughness or intent. Edwards wanted to play. But the staff’s responsibility is to zoom out and make the right call for the player and the program. They didn’t in this case, and the consequences reflected it. If there’s any silver lining, it’s that Fickell owned the mistake, and now the hope has to be that Edwards takes the time he needs to get fully healthy, because putting him back out there too early again would be an even bigger failure. Hopefully, this situation doesn’t happen again.
The young guys and Mason Posa
If there’s a silver lining right now, it’s the young talent starting to show up. Linebacker Mason Posa is at the top of that list.
“Yeah, there are some young guys, especially Mason Posa,” Fickell said. There’s a guy who wasn’t here in the Spring, and it’s obviously difficult for young guys to play anyway, but when they’re here in the Spring, they get a much better opportunity. But he’s done a great job. We’ve actually used him in some package stuff. He played a little bit more on the third down, which obviously gave us an opportunity to switch those guys up inside and maybe give guys some rest as well. But what he does is going to continue to grow.
“He’s a guy who I’m not saying knows everything. I’m not saying he knows most of the stuff, but the great thing about guys like him is that it doesn’t slow him down. And when he has an opportunity to make some plays, he puts himself in a position, and he makes ‘em.”
Posa logged 12 snaps against Maryland, and the staff trusted him in a few different spots: on third downs in coverage, as a blitzer, and even dropping into passing lanes. He picked up a pressure, broke up a pass, and flashed exactly why Wisconsin’s staff was so excited to land him in the 2025 class. For a true freshman to already be rotating in behind Christian Alliegro and Tackett Curtis at inside linebacker is significant.
And it’s not just Posa. Young players this staff recruited, like Emerson Mandell, Colin Cubberley, Ryan Cory, Eugene Hilton Jr., Grant Stec, Omillio Agard, Dilin Jones, Darrion Dupree, Dillan Johnson, and Nick Clayton, have all either seen the field, carved out roles, or are pushing for more opportunities. Some are seeing spot snaps late in games now, while others are earning bigger chunks of playing time. Still, all represent the type of foundation Wisconsin needs to push through 2025 and beyond.
“Those guys do give us some energy and some things that we need, and those sparks to say, hey, we have to find a way to continue to pound this rock, but find a way to make some things happen,” Fickell said. “And by nature, sometimes these young guys are the ones that can do that.”
The offensive line uncertainty
Nothing is settled up front for position coach AJ Blazek.
Renfro’s status at the center spot is unclear once again. Joe Brunner barely practiced during the bye. Davis Heinzen, who lost his job at left tackle after a disastrous opener and became the swing tackle, repped at center to see if he offers a temporary solution. Kerry Kodanko could be an option, depending on health. Ryan Cory’s spot isn’t guaranteed.
In short, the “best five” for Wisconsin is still a moving target.
“We don’t know right now, we’ve made some changes,” Fickell said. “I think Davis [Heinzen] has played some center. They did a pretty good job at that. And just trying to figure out, do we get some guys healthy? Is Jake able to go? Is Kerry Kodanko ready to go again? If they are, we have an opportunity to be able to move some of those guys around you, those older guys, but a lot of those pieces are what make it difficult, right?”
And that’s the reality of Wisconsin’s situation. It’s hard to build a game plan around an offensive line when you don’t even know who the five will be or where they’ll line up. The staff is left trying to patch together solutions with the available pieces, but it’s unlikely that anything will change significantly until they can establish some continuity. The lack of time to grow together, to build chemistry and trust, is the real issue.
“That mixture of guys playing with each other at the same time … has been obviously an Achilles heel for us right now. So there could be some changes based on the health of these guys as we get into this week.”
And against Michigan? There’s no margin for error.
“We have to be smarter,” Fickell said. “We have to be able to do what the guys can do. There are ways of helping those guys out up front, and that’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to do a better job, in particular up there, saying, ‘this is who we have, and this is what we need to prepare for, as opposed to, well, if we have this guy, we can do this.’ And that’s on us as coaches, we have to make sure that we’ve got a game plan.
“We’ve got to say, this is who we’re playing with. If somebody else is available, that’s great, but we’ve got to prepare for the guys we’ve got. There’s a combination of things that we as coaches have to do a better job of, but also our players have to do a better job of as well.”
Thus far, Wisconsin’s offensive line metrics tell the story. Per PFF, the Badgers rank 12th in the Big Ten in pass-blocking with a grade of 69.6, and 16th in run-blocking at 55.2. That’s not the Wisconsin standard, not even close, and it underlines just how far this group has to go.
Nobody can change the reality of where things stand. Still, the hope is that health eventually allows them to settle on a five that can build continuity and start laying the groundwork for a unit that grows into something better.
Run defense faces a big test vs. Michigan
If there’s one thing Wisconsin can hang its hat on, it’s the run defense.
The Badgers haven’t allowed an opponent to rush for more than 74 yards in a single game this season, marking their longest streak of that kind since 2009 (seven games). They’re giving up just 50 rushing yards per contest, the best mark in the nation, and are one of only three teams in college football yet to surrender a run of 20-plus yards. The advanced metrics back it up, too, as Wisconsin ranks 12th nationally in EPA per rush.
But Michigan is the litmus test.
“It’ll be a test,” Fickell said. “I don’t know that we’ve had a test like this in the running game this year, and so we have done a good job up front. We’ve done a good job at controlling the run and giving ourselves a better opportunity to win football games when you can stop the run. But this is definitely going to be a different challenge. You also have to recognize that they have opportunities to make big plays in the passing game.
“Whether it’s the quarterback’s feet, the quarterback’s arm, they’ve got talented players on the outside. I think maybe what they don’t get as much credit for is the balance that they have. It’s overlooked sometimes when they’ve run the ball as well as they have and the backs they’ve got, but it’s going to be a different challenge for us defensively.”
That’s the challenge: stop the Wolverines’ rushing attack and risk getting burned through the air. Wisconsin’s defense has been great at stopping the run, but its pass defense sits just 84th in EPA per dropback. Saturday will show whether the run defense is truly elite or simply untested.
We’ll find out soon enough. Wisconsin heads to Ann Arbor to take on No. 20 Michigan (3-1, 1-0, Big Ten) on Saturday at 11 a.m. CT, on FOX as part of Big Noon Kickoff, a stage that will leave no hiding spots for this team.
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