It’s been a rough few weeks for the Wisconsin Badgers, who were blown out by the Alabama Crimson Tide and Maryland Terrapins before their bye week.
Wisconsin came into the season knowing the difficulties that lay ahead with one of the toughest schedules in college football. But, issues of the past continued to arise, such as slow starts and special teams miscues, and the Badgers looked completely out of place in both losses.
Last season was a disaster for the Badgers, as they lost five straight games
after starting the year 5-2 to miss a bowl game. It was a team that fought hard, but couldn’t figure out the issues that plagued them all year, and every loss seemed to compound against each other.
In the words of outside linebacker Darryl Peterson, the Badgers ‘beat themselves twice,’ as they dwelled on each loss, impacting them the next week.
Well, after preaching that wasn’t the case this season, Wisconsin had an uninspiring performance against the Terrapins in Week 4, raising questions about head coach Luke Fickell, the culture of the team, and the recurring issues.
What did Fickell see from his team this week as they looked to regroup ahead of Michigan?
“The culture [and] the nature of these guys is, is really good, good,” Fickell said on Monday. “They came out in the bye week, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, like we practiced, and they came out with energy. They came out, did what you asked them to do. Now, a guy like Joe [Brunner], we didn’t ask to do a whole lot. He got banged up, but it wasn’t like he was over there riding the bike or sitting on the side. I mean, he’s up there, probably as vocal as anybody, and getting after some of the young guys and coaching it up and pushing guys.
“And that’s the thing that sometimes I wonder about, right? I mean, you don’t see some of those things just because of the nature of [the season]. These guys still go out. They do everything you ask them to do. If we’d asked them to practice four days during the bye week, they’d practice all four days during the bye week. But I think that’s what’s going to be challenged, and has been challenged and will continue to be challenged, is our ability to say, look, guys, we know we have to get better. There’s a process to getting better. We have to see some of those steps to getting better.’ But, there’s no way of doing it if you can’t stay together and you can’t keep your mind going in a direction, I can’t always say [that’s] positive, but going in a direction that gives us a chance to get better.”
It’s good that Fickell is seeing the fight in his team after some rough weeks. But, we’ve heard the same storyline before from the Badgers head coach about his team, and major questions still remain, especially with the schedule ahead.
Fickell put a major emphasis on culture after an ugly year in 2024, but it’s unclear really how much leadership is impacting this group. In the past, there were guys like Hunter Wohler or even Tanner Mordecai who were visibly impacted after losses and looked to fire up their team by holding guys accountable. That’s culture.
Now, it’s been hard to build that with the injuries Wisconsin has faced, especially at quarterback. But, Wisconsin has really struggled to respond to losses over the past two years. Whether that’s a culture issue, an identity issue, or a preparation issue, the coaching staff has yet to find an answer.
Even in a rebuilding year where development seems to be the biggest goal, accountability and leadership still have to be there to drive the culture. And it’s not known if that’s there at the moment to the level Wisconsin needs.
