Luke Fickell eager to stop talking and start playing as Wisconsin vies for a championship

MADISON – Luke Fickell acknowledged he struggled to sleep soundly the night of July 31.

That was the night before Wisconsin traveled to UW-Platteville to prepare for the opening of preseason football camp one day later.

Do you think Fickell is going to sleep like a baby Friday night? The night before his first home game as Wisconsin’s head coach?

Not a chance.

"I said this morning, it is almost like Christmas morning," Fickell said on Monday during his weekly news conference. "You’re excited about it, but there’s a lot of things that you just don’t know…

"I’m excited to get to Saturday. Not saying we’re trying to push the whole week by, but just to feel the buzz. To be in the stadium. To (feel) all the things you think you remember from the times playing here.

"I won’t take much time to look around and enjoy it by any means. But the excitement, the buzz, the feeling..."

Fickell, 50, enters his first season at UW with a team ranked No. 21 in the USA Today Sports AFCA Coaches Poll and No. 19 in The Associated Press poll.

The Badgers, who open at 2:30 p.m. Saturday against Buffalo, are a slight favorite to edge Iowa in the Big Ten West Division.

After seeing the Badgers fail to win the West in 2020, 2021 and 2022, UW fans have embraced the new regime. The players are eager to make a run at the conference title in 2023.

"I feel like coach Fick is just as excited as the players to get out there," said wide receiver Will Pauling, one of four players who transferred from Cincinnati. "I know he is glad to be back in the Big Ten. I’ve never played in Camp Randall but from everything I’ve heard – with Jump Around – it’s going to be crazy."

Might Fickell join the players and jump around on the field between the third and fourth quarters?

"Oh, if he jumps around we’ve got to find it on video somewhere," Pauling said, smiling.

But can UW, which brought in more than a dozen transfers in the offseason and has switched to the Air Raid offense coordinated by Phil Longo, make a seamless transition to take advantage of a division that appears vulnerable?

“I think we’ve got to finish this thing out with a bang,” fifth-year senior tight end Hayden Rucci said.

Luke Fickell's hiring at Wisconsin sparks memories of previous coaching changes, including the hiring of Barry Alvarez

The hiring of Fickell, who led Cincinnati to the College Football Playoff in 2021 and compiled a 57-18 overall mark in six seasons at the school, conjures memories of previous hires that came at critical junctures in the history of the UW program.

When Barry Alvarez replaced Don Morton before the 1990 season, the program appeared to be in disarray.

Morton was fired after compiling a 6-27 mark in three seasons, including a 3-21 mark in Big Ten play. The crowd at the 1989 regular-season finale, generously announced as 29,776, looked smaller than the crowds at some WIAA championship games.

Alvarez during his introductory news conference won over victory-starved UW fans with one comment.

“People want good football in Wisconsin,” he said. “People have to be patient. They have to understand that things aren’t going to turn over overnight.

"But let me say this: They better get season tickets right now, because before long they probably won't be able to.”

Four seasons later, UW defeated UCLA in the Rose Bowl.

There was no such drama in the summer of 2005 when Alvarez announced he would step down as head coach after that season to focus full-time on his duties as athletic director. Bret Bielema, UW’s defensive coordinator for only one season, would take over the program in 2006.

Bielema helped guide UW to Big Ten titles in 2010, 2011 and 2012 but his run ended -- and the drama began – just days after the Badgers won the 2012 Big Ten title with a 70-31 victory over Nebraska.

Bielema was named head coach at Arkansas and Alvarez served as UW’s head coach for the Rose Bowl, a 20-14 loss to Stanford. After going through a modest list of candidates, Alvarez settled on Gary Andersen of Utah State to replace Bielema.

You want more drama? Andersen left UW to take over the Oregon State program two seasons later, days after UW’s 59-0 loss to Ohio State in the 2014 Big Ten title game.

Looking to stabilize the program, Alvarez brought former UW assistant Paul Chryst back from Pittsburgh, where he had served as head coach for three seasons.

With Chryst watching from the stands in Tampa, Alvarez again filled in as head coach and UW outlasted Auburn, 34-31, in overtime in the 2015 Outback Bowl.

Chryst was hailed as a returning hero and led UW to the Big Ten title game in 2016, 2017 and 2019, a 6-1 bowl record and an overall mark of 67-26.

More: Here's why Wisconsin will win the Big Ten West in 2023 ... or why the Badgers won't

More: The Luke Fickell era at Wisconsin is about to begin. Here's a game-by-game look at 2023.

Chris McIntosh's decision to fire Paul Chryst, just five games into the 2022 season, marked a pivotal moment at Wisconsin

Chris McIntosh, who took over for Alvarez as athletic director in June 2021, fired Chryst just five games into last season and eventually brought in Fickell. McIntosh believed change was needed for UW to compete for championships.

Fickell embraced the opportunity to help change the trajectory of a program that was a combined 13-11 in Big Ten play and 20-13 overall the last three seasons.

“How we handle adversity, how we have the ability to grow, how we have the ability to come together,” Fickell said, “the way we play in the last month of the season will really help me and our program define what it looks like and what it is as we move forward.

“And it might look different, but deep down as you dive into it, it's still going to be about the guys up front. It’s still going to be about physicality. It’s still going to be about controlling and winning the lines of scrimmage, whether it’s offensively or defensively.

“The thing I loved about this opportunity in particular was they never asked about that. It wasn't like: ‘What are you going to change? Aren't you going to change?’

“It was: ‘We believe in you as a person. We believe in you as a coach. We believe that you'll do what's best to continue to grow our program and move us forward.’

“So, I give a lot of credit to obviously Chris McIntosh who believed that and the people that are around us that we'll figure out what exactly it will look like as we continue to grow.”

No matter the name and number on the jersey, the UW players expect to be in Indianapolis on Dec. 2 for the league title game.

“First off, I expect to win this year,” junior inside linebacker Jake Chaney said. “Going to smaller bowl games (the) past two years, missing the Big Ten championship a couple times, that kind of sucked.”

A berth in the four-team college football playoff in 2023? Why not Wisconsin?

Perhaps SMU transfer Tanner Mordecai, set to start at quarterback, put it best when asked to articulate the reasons he chose UW.

“I firmly believe coach Fickell is going to win a national championship here,” he said.

The hype, the buzz, the energy -- whatever term fits best for you -- is palpable.

Now it is up to Fickell, his staff and the players to deliver.

"He is fired up," junior safety Hunter Wohler said. "He is always fired up. He loves competing and he loves the guys that he does it with. He can’t wait. He is ecstatic and I am as well, just to see what we can put on the field, to show the type of team we are."

More: Wisconsin will count on transfers in the 2023 football season. Here are five to watch.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin's Luke Fickell eager for the games to begin