The Wisconsin Badgers are just six days away from the start of the regular season, when they’ll take on the No. 4 Notre Dame Fighting Irish at 6:30 p.m. at Lambeau Field.
Heading into the week, the biggest question for the Badgers is the availability of starting offensive linemen Emerson Mandell and Kevin Heywood, who have been out for much of the fall with their respective injuries.
Mandell hasn’t practiced since the spring after undergoing offseason surgery on his foot. Heywood had an injury on the second
day of fall camp, and has been out since. Head coach Luke Fickell spoke to the media last week and didn’t have an update on either player, while hoping that they’d get on the field in the next five days to figure out their status for Week 1.
Well, speaking to the media again on Monday, Fickell gave the latest updates on both players and their availability for Notre Dame.
“That’s why I said there’s a lot of unknowns because we don’t know [about whether they can play],” Fickell said. “And, you know, there’s still some time for us. Those guys have been back in some capacity, but I couldn’t tell you exactly where we are to date right now. And so that’ll be a little bit closer towards a game-time decision. Both of them took some reps today. And as far as a lot of guys took reps today.
“But that’s the one spot probably on the offensive line that this week is going to be a lot of determining factors. I think this is where we have to be smart in all the things that we’re doing. And we know this is a huge game in Game 1 and kicking off the way we’re kicking off in Lambeau against Notre Dame. But we also understand there’s a journey here. And so, there’s a part of this thing that we’ve got to make sure that as we get closer towards game time, we do the things that are going to be best for us for this entire journey. And so there aren’t decisions made completely on a lot of guys just yet. And we’ll have to figure that out as we get closer to game day.”
It would be a big blow to not have two starters against a top-five team in the country this weekend, but the Badgers do need to play the long game with Heywood and Mandell, given what is at stake for the program this season.
If both cannot go, Wisconsin has been practicing with their backups on the right side, so there is at least some familiarity there. The Badgers have been playing both Stylz Blackmon and Blake Cherry with the top offense at guard, while Lucas Simmons-Johansson has taken the bulk of the right tackle reps.
The Big Ten did change the rules on their availability reports this season, asking teams to submit reports in the days leading up to conference games, rather than just two hours before kickoff on Saturdays. However, that rule only applies to conference games, so we will next only hear an update on the starters on Saturday ahead of kickoff.
