Luke Fickell believes Wisconsin football found the offensive 'identity that fits us’
Luke Fickell thinks that Wisconsin football has found the "identity that fits us.” With pressure mounting, it had better be one that moves the needle.
It flew under the radar, but it might’ve been the most important thing Luke Fickell said about the Wisconsin football program this offseason: “I really do feel like we’ve got the identity that fits us.”
Suppose you’ve followed the Wisconsin Badgers the last two seasons. In that case, you know how significant that quote is — because finding a true identity is something the program has lacked since the moment Fickell arrived in Madison. And now, entering Year 3, that search for an identity may finally be over. The question is whether it’s too little, too late.
The job was never going to be easy. Wisconsin fans may not love hearing that, but it’s true. Fickell took over a divided locker room of sorts, a stale offensive system, and a program that was teetering on the edge of deterioration after years of slow decline. Sure, the recruiting floor was higher than most places, and the donor base was committed, but the margin for error was still thin, and Fickell stumbled right out of the gate.
He went all in on a philosophical overhaul, bringing in Phil Longo as offensive coordinator to install an Air Raid system that felt about as natural in Wisconsin as skipping an Old Fashioned at a Friday fish fry.
Some fans were skeptical from the start. And with the benefit of hindsight, the fit looks even worse—Wisconsin tossed aside an identity that had long allowed it to punch above its weight and become one of the most consistent programs in college football. When the results followed—ranking 93rd (23.5) and 109th (22.6) in scoring offense the past two years, it only confirmed what many had feared: the gamble didn’t work.
The losses were piling up, but what hurt worse was how Wisconsin was losing its identity. That’s why the Jeff Grimes hire is so important.
Not because Grimes is going to suddenly turn the Badgers into a top-10 offense overnight, but because he was brought in to do what Longo couldn’t: blend the core values this program was built on with the modern passing concepts Fickell still believes in. This wasn’t just about swapping out play-callers. It was about altering the entire approach. Bringing Wisconsin back to what it’s known for, while still finding ways to evolve.
“I feel like it’s the identity that we need,” Fickell told ESPN’s Pete Thamel, referring to the offense now led by Grimes. “It’s not completely all the way old-school, but I think the idea of being more multiple and truly understanding what physicality-first looks like is where we came to.
“Whether it was Coach Grimes’ philosophy or his scheme or really just his personality. I think we’re in a good place. Obviously, we’ve got a ways to continue to grow, but I really do feel like we’ve got the identity that fits us, that gives us a chance to lean on our guys up front, but still be multiple enough to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got to be able to create big plays and create space and get down the field just maybe in some different ways’.”
That right there says it all. If you paid attention during spring practice or listened to the coaches during their media availabilities, you’d know—this new offense isn’t some gimmick. It’s multiple. It’s physical. It blends the heavy use of tight ends with outside zone run concepts, pre-snap motion, and passing looks out of shotgun with a return to the type of football that Wisconsin was once known for—tough, nasty, and disciplined.
But can it work against this 2025 schedule?
Because here’s the part that’s been glossed over too often: Wisconsin isn’t playing in the old Big Ten anymore. There’s no more Big Ten West to mow down en route to eight or more wins. The days of needing to just beat Northwestern, Minnesota, Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska, or Iowa to secure a trip to Indy are long gone. The road to relevance now runs through Michigan, Ohio State, and Oregon—and that’s just this year’s gauntlet.
It’s not about being good enough to win the West anymore — it’s about beating the teams you should and stealing a few from the big boys to push for a spot in the College Football Playoffs. And nothing we’ve seen to this point suggests Wisconsin is anywhere close to doing that.
That’s why this identity shift on offense matters. Not because it guarantees a turnaround, but because it marks the first real sign that Fickell understands what didn’t work. For all the success he had at Cincinnati — and he was a home run hire at the time — it’s taken some hard lessons to realize how different the game is at this level, especially with the added chaos of NIL and the transfer portal. Trying to build an Ohio State replica without Ohio State talent was never going to work.
“This isn’t for everybody, right?” Fickell told reporters. “This is a grown-ass man’s league, and this is a grown man’s game. If guys don’t understand that and this isn’t the right thing for them, it is what it is.
“Sometimes, having options isn't always the best thing for guys to grow. Whatever we come across here, we're going to continue to practice. We're going to continue to push and develop the guys within and the guys that understand what it takes to climb this mountain and play in this league.”
That’s as blunt as coach Fickell has ever been — and it came during the offseason, which should tell you something. Fickell’s a fiery competitor, and we’ve seen flashes of that during the season, but this felt like a rare moment of pulling back the curtain and saying the quiet part out loud.
The truth is, Fickell is finally drawing lines in the sand that probably needed to be drawn much earlier. This isn’t just about bringing in talent anymore. It’s about prioritizing cultural fit. It’s about finding guys who take to tough coaching, want to be developed, can handle a physically demanding environment, and won’t fold the moment things get hard.
There’s a reason the recruiting classes under Fickell have improved.
This is the first head coach to take a Group of Five program to the College Football Playoff, and that still carries weight. His recruiting department has done an excellent job selling that vision, pitching recruits on what’s possible at Wisconsin with time, patience, and the right foundation in place. But that’s only half the battle. The other part is getting those guys to buy in once they arrive, stay the course, and show enough on the field to make it worth keeping them around. Because in today’s game, signing talent is one thing, and retaining it during the offseason is another.
That requires honest conversations, proper development plans, and—let’s be real—the kind of on-field product that inspires the financial backing needed to retain them long enough to build something sustainable.
Because let’s call a spade a spade: it’s hard to sell hope when you’re 12-13 overall, 8-10 in Big Ten play, and winless against Top 25 teams.
"I think in the first two years I was in the mindset of trying to do it the same way, continuing to build from within and keeping everybody in, as many as you could, and getting them to continue to grow and build and be who you want us to be," Fickell said. "And I think going into Year 3 was the first time we recognized like, OK, there's some things that we have to do different, whether it's a little bit more schematically, whether it's truly size-wise defensively, which we recognized that we really had to do.
"So, to start the offseason, it wasn't just, "OK, you don't have a bowl game and things like that." It was like, "OK, first let's have some really deep conversations, because there's going to have to be some changes made."
The bowl streak is over. All three rivalry trophies are gone. And the reputation Wisconsin once carried as one of the most stable, consistent college football programs has taken a major hit. If this season goes sideways—if the Badgers stumble to another five or six-win finish despite all the coaching changes and culture talk—it won’t just be Fickell sitting on the hot seat. It’ll be the entire direction of the program under fire.
Athletic Director Chris McIntosh, the man who made the call to pass on Jim Leonhard and hand the keys to Fickell, has a heavily vested interest in this working. Because if it doesn’t pan out, McIntosh might not get the chance to hire another head coach for the Wisconsin football program.
That’s why this year will be under a microscope.
There are some reasons to feel optimistic. Even with the loss of left tackle Kevin Heywood to a torn ACL, Wisconsin’s offensive line returns a core group of experienced starters. Billy Edwards Jr. looks like the most steady presence the Badgers have had at quarterback in a while. The running back room has real upside, and there are a couple of receivers who can stretch the field and make plays in space. Defensively, they’ve added size up front through the portal—something badly needed—and they brought back some core pieces on the back end to stabilize the secondary.
None of that is hypothetical. These are tangible pieces.
And offensively, coach Grimes' system feels like the kind of balance Wisconsin’s been searching for—rooted in physicality and toughness, but with enough modern concepts to keep defenses honest. On the other side of the ball, Mike Tressel is making some schematic tweaks of his own after two underwhelming years as the defensive coordinator.
It’s not a full reset, but it’s clear there’s an understanding that just running it back wouldn’t be good enough. But they need to come together fast. Because there’s no hiding from this schedule. Wisconsin could be better and still win five games. That’s the reality of 2025. And Fickell knows it.
"From within the building, it's all about this mountain to climb. We didn't accept every [potential] transfer guy that we had a chance to get," Fickell explained. "Every transfer that was possibly coming in here, the first thing we did was set the schedule down in front of him to say, "Look, just want to make sure you understand what this mountain looks like." So not only emphasizing what this thing will look like, but understanding that the humble and hungry mindset and attitude has got to be that you're willing to do what we need to do, because it's not going to be easy.
"We know that there's going to be some peaks and valleys in this climb, but I think it's got to start from within. I don't talk about the schedule a lot, but we just talk about it being a mountain to climb."
Nobody’s asking for perfection. Nobody’s expecting 12-0. But if these adjustments are for real, we’ve got to see progress. Tangible progress.
If Wisconsin can look the part again—if they can play hard, play physical, win some of those toss-up games, not beat themselves, and push the top teams deeper into the fourth quarter than they have the last two years—then yeah, maybe Fickell’s vision starts to take shape. Maybe the high-level donations come back. Maybe the fanbase starts to believe again.
But if they don’t? If this new identity turns out to be another misfire, and the program stalls again in Year 3? Then we’ll stop talking about identity altogether and start talking about a replacement after the 2026 season.
Because this isn’t just a prove-it year for the Badgers. It’s a prove-it year for the guy tasked with fixing all of this. Fickell and his coaching staff absolutely deserve two more seasons to try and build a winner, but for a coach who started on second base, he sure hasn’t done much to advance the runner. And whether he likes it or not, the clock is already ticking.
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