Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1546068
38 PRESEASON 2026 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED GAME PREVIEW: WISCONSIN BY JACK SOBLE T o fully understand how bad things have become for Wiscon- sin under Luke Fickell, one must understand the number 42. That number was the Badgers' off- season rallying cry in the months that preceded the 2025 season. It served as a reminder of their most humiliating moment of 2024: A 42-10 loss to Iowa, which occurred during a five-game losing streak that knocked them out of bowl eligibility for the first time since 2001. "Forty-two" became Wisconsin's version of Marcus Freeman's "leave no doubt" or "keep the pain," used as moti- vation to ensure it never happened again. A year later, it happened again. Iowa marched into Camp Randall Sta- dium — on homecoming, no less — and beat the Badgers 37-0. A matchup the team had circled on the calendar since January became yet another embarrass- ment. Chants of "Fire Fickell" rained down from the fans as early as the second quarter. The third-year head coach, on his way to a second straight season with- out a bowl game, was out of answers. "That's as low as it can be," Fick- ell said. "I apologize. I apologize to our guys, to not be ready, to not have them ready. I'm dumbfounded in a lot of ways." The next week, Ohio State entered Madison and left with a 34-0 victory. Later that evening, according to The Athletic, then-Wisconsin athletics di- rector Chris McIntosh called Fickell into his office and asked him a question: "What do you want to do?" Either Fickell could look for a way out or recommit himself to fixing the Badgers. He chose the latter, and in re- sponse, the university doubled down on its commitment to him. With the money it would have used to buy Fickell out, Wisconsin reportedly invested more than $25 million into his roster. A prominent booster told The Athletic that he believed the Badgers' budget was in the bottom third of the Big Ten in 2025. For the 2026 season, the booster heard, it resides in the top half. Entering Fickell's fourth year at the helm in Madison, his roster is indeed more talented than its previous iterations, with 33 new transfer additions. Wiscon- sin finished the cycle as On3's No. 14 por- tal class, just ahead of two marquee Notre Dame opponents in Miami (No. 16) and BYU (No. 17). It also plays a much more forgiving schedule, with one exception. The Badgers open 2026 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis., for a Sunday night matchup with Notre Dame. While a loss is expected and will not cripple its season, Wisconsin's showing against Fickell's former pupil could serve as a bellwether for things to come. Freeman's boss from 2017-20 at Cin- cinnati has a fourth chance to turn the Badgers around. He may not get a fifth. "I think for us in general, we know darn well where we've been the last couple years," Fickell said at Big Ten Media Days. "To have the focus of what it is going to be on Week 1, Sept. 6, not only that it's in Lambeau Field, I think it's helped me as a coach recognize some of the things we have to continue to evolve to be able to do." COMPLETE OVERHAUL Wisconsin's issues from the first three years of the Fickell era are well publicized. The Badgers failed to embrace name, image and likeness (NIL) in ways that crippled the talent on the roster. They did not recruit their own state nearly as effectively as previous coaching staffs had done in the past. They also tried to change who they were offensively, which backfired on everyone involved. Fickell's first offensive coordinator hire was Phil Longo, who tried to convert Wisconsin into an "Air Raid" team. That MAKE OR BREAK Luke Fickell begins defining season at Wisconsin with trial by fire vs. Irish Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell is 17-21 in three seasons, including a 4-8 campaign in 2025. PHOTO COURTESY WISCONSIN ATHLETICS