Wisconsin HC Luke Fickell urges students to show up on time to Saturday’s game
Wisconsin’s game-week press conference this year did not start with the head coach saying he’s ‘excited for the opportunity to play football.’ It’s a new era in Madison, and gone is Paul Chryst’s week-in, week-out press conference script.
Wisconsin is still Wisconsin in many ways, though. There is always a sense of Groundhog Day when certain topics are discussed.
That was the case today at Fickell’s presser as we re-entered the dialogue surrounding when students show up to football games at Camp Randall.
Related: Predicting every Big Ten team’s 2023 wins and losses, final record and the conference champ, Final Wisconsin football 2023 game-by-game predictions
“The excitement, the buzz, the feeling. I’m curious to see how our students show up,” Fickell said. “I’ve heard to get them in a little earlier and start this thing off the right way. It’s a 2:30 kick so it shouldn’t be that early for them. Hoping maybe there’s some newness to getting some things adjusted up a little bit. That’s a suggestion from our players”
Here’s the video:
You heard @CoachFick, @UWMadison students. 🗣 pic.twitter.com/2hXHAWn5lh
— Wisconsin On BTN (@WisconsinOnBTN) August 29, 2023
My thoughts on this topic are clear: Camp Randall has a logistics problem when it comes to getting students in the gate. Are there many late arrivers that don’t have the exact kickoff time in mind, absolutely. But if you’ve sat in the student section at all in the last several years you know how much of a nightmare it is to get from the entrance gate to the seat itself.
Maybe the energy surrounding the Fickell era is an instant fix to this issue. But I’d predict a Week 1 afternoon game against Buffalo isn’t enough to get everybody in their seats 20 minutes before kickoff. Let’s start with the Ohio State night game and go from there. Baby steps.
