The Wisconsin Badgers have hit the injury bug early in the season, and that seems to be continuing this week against the No. 20 Michigan Wolverines.
Speaking with reporters on Monday after Wisconsin’s bye week, head coach Luke Fickell revealed that starting safety Preston Zachman will be out on Saturday. That’s notable to rule him out already, given how early in the week it is.
“[Preston] Zachman, he’ll be out,” Fickell said. “He’s not a guy that we’ll get back just yet. The other guys, we don’t know.
I mean, we’ll go out there today and see where those guys are. Most of those guys did not do much last week. Dilin [Jones] did a little bit; I think he ran pretty well, not in contact situations.
“But, I hope, and we hope to get all those guys back. But, I think that, obviously, early in this week, have to be smart, but the preparation for saying, ‘hey, hopefully we have those guys is where we are right now.’ Obviously, a lot of unknowns.”
Zachman was in a boot on a scooter during Wisconsin’s 27-10 loss to the Maryland Terrapins. He had seemed to get injured against the Alabama Crimson Tide in the second half, as Matt Jung took over and played a good amount of snaps in the game.
Jung was Zachman’s replacement against Maryland, and had a couple of coverage miscues as the safety over the top on vertical routes. He’ll likely draw his second start alongside Austin Brown this weekend in Ann Arbor.
Zachman isn’t the only one dealing with an injury, as Fickell noted the ‘minor injuries’ are starting to pile up for Wisconsin.
“We got reps for guys that needed to get reps. We got opportunities to look ourselves in the face, and figure out what we need to do a lot better. And also, giving guys the opportunity to, I say minor injuries, but hopefully things that can heal up in a week or two, giving them the opportunity to heal up,” Fickell said about progress during the bye week. So, all of those things combined together, I think, gave us a good opportunity to use the bye in the best way possible.
“And, obviously, coming off of that and rolling into this week, there are a lot of things that we don’t know with some guys with some minor injuries. But, we handled it the right way, we believe, to get some of those guys to heal up a little bit. And even the Joe Brunners of the world that have played a lot of football, he dinged up his knee last week. Didn’t take a bunch of reps, but had the chance to work on some things himself, and as a whole, think about how we can focus, figure out what we need to do. We know it is all about the process, and that is what is most important to us right now. I think we used last week in a really good way, not just for young guys but for old guys as well.”
Those other injuries will be important to monitor, as well as the ones to Billy Edwards, Jake Renfro, and Dilin Jones, ahead of another big week for the Badgers.
