Violence and hunting: Wisconsin football has a clear theme for 2024

The season kicks off in a matter of weeks and the tone is being set in training camp.

Luke Fickell / Wisconsin Badgers via YouTube

What should Wisconsin Badgers fans expect from the football team this season? Violence and hunting.

E.J. Whitlow, the Badgers defensive line coach, acknowledged at training camp Wednesday that head coach Luke Fickell plans to rotate 7-8 defensive linemen. It's a plan aimed at keeping everyone fresh so they can maintain a violent edge over the course of a game and 12-game regular season.

"The great thing about Coach Fickell is he played the position. He understands that if we want to play the game up front the way it's supposed to be played — hard, violent, playing with passion and guys being relentless int heir pursuit — you can't be a guy that plays 70, 80 snaps," Whitlow said. "Obviously, the goal is to play a long season, so that adds up, all those snaps. You have to have depth, you have to have guys you trust to go out there to keep guys fresh so we can continue to hunt."

"You can't play D-line if you don't play with a sense of violence, if you don't play with edge. If you don't have that mentality that it's me versus the guy across from him, and I gotta own the line of scrimmage," Whitlow continued. "It just becomes who you are."

Hunt is clearly one of the thematic words the Badgers are emphasizing in 2024. Fickell, during Thursday's practice, wore a shirt with "HUNT OR BE HUNTED" printed on the front.

"You know damn well we're going to push. We need every single guy here. Take care of each other. All hunters," Fickell said at the end of practice.

The 2024 hunt starts Friday, Aug. 30 when the Badgers host Western Michigan. The big hunt, however, comes Sept. 14 when the Alabama Crimson Tide visit Camp Randall Stadium, at which point one could very well argue that the Badgers are the ones being hunted.