The predictions for the 2025 Wisconsin Badgers football team have been … less than stellar.
Oddsbooks currently have Wisconsin favored to win fewer than six games in 2025, which would make them ineligible for a bowl game for the second consecutive season. It’s understandable why that is the case. Coming off a disappointing 5-7 campaign in 2024, the Badgers had their first losing season since 2001.
Wisconsin is facing one of, if not the most demanding, schedules in the nation. Does that deter Wisconsin’s
hopes in 2025? Head coach Luke Fickell doesn’t seem to think so, urging the message of embracing the challenge in the new-look Big Ten.
”You know what? Guess [that’s] what you signed up for, right? As I said to our guys in the past, this isn’t the Big Ten West anymore,” Fickell said last week at the Big Ten Media Days. “I can honestly say, with that schedule has brought upon probably a lot of the changes which we have. Whether it’s guys that are no longer with us or guys that are with us today.
“The great thing about that schedule is it’s pretty easy to be able to lay it down right in front of everybody, whether they’re coming back for their fifth year or fourth year, or guys coming into our program, a guy like Billy Edwards.”
Of course, in college football, many know and plan their schedules ahead of time. The Big Ten released opponents for the next five seasons when announcing its new-look schedule after the arrival of Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington.
So, every player that joined the program is aware of the challenges that lie ahead, and is looking to take them head-on.
”This isn’t the NFL, where they lay out the schedule sometime in April,” Fickell continued. “Everybody knows what they signed up for, and everybody knows what they stuck around for, and the beautiful thing about that is we’ve been able to embrace that. We’ve been able to say, ‘hey, this isn’t going to be an elephant in the room.’
“We understand what being part of the Big Ten, what being part of this conference, and in order to be at the top and be at the best, you’ve got to compete, and you’ve got to beat the best. It gives us a challenge and an incredible opportunity in front of us as well.”
In what will assuredly be a challenging season for Luke Fickell and the Badgers, they at least are acknowledging the road ahead of them. Let’s hope they prove everyone wrong, ala 2016.
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