Fickell's Word To Describe Badgers' 2023 Season

Now that Luke Fickell's first season with the Wisconsin Badgers is done, he can sum it up in one word.

The Wisconsin Badgers’ 35-31 loss to the LSU Tigers in the ReliaQuest Bowl on New Year’s Day was, in many ways, a microcosm of the Badgers’ first season under coach Luke Fickell.

The loss dropped the Badgers to 7-6 for the season.

When he was asked to describe his first season, Fickell didn’t have to search long for the word.

“Man, I think the last few weeks, we've had reflections and things about that,” Fickell said. “The word is 'roller coaster'. I'm not saying that a lot of seasons aren't that way, but you're talking about the ups, the downs, the twists and the turns that I think make it the most difficult thing.”

Wisconsin started the season 4-1, with the only loss coming to Washington State, 31-22, on the road. After beating Rutgers on Oct. 7, 24-13, the Badgers were already 2-0 in Big Ten play.

Then came injuries, including one to quarterback Tanner Mordecai that took him out for part of the season. The sixth-year college player suffered an injury in the Badgers’ 15-6 loss to Iowa on Oct. 14 and he didn’t play again until the Northwestern game on Nov. 11.

Without him, the Badgers managed to beat Illinois, 25-21, but lost three straight to Ohio State, Indiana and Northwestern to take the Badgers out of the race for the Big Ten West.

Wisconsin beat Nebraska and Minnesota to end the regular season before moving on to the bowl game.

Fickell, at one point, took over Ohio State’s program as an interim coach after a scandal led to the resignation of his boss, Jim Tressel. He stayed at Ohio State as an assistant until after the 2016 season, when he took the head-coaching job at Cincinnati.

There, he built the Bearcats into the first non-Power 5 conference team to earn a berth in the College Football Playoff.

But, he said this stretch “has probably been the most difficult stretch of two and a half, three months that I've had in coaching. There's just a lot of things. I probably forget about that being year one is how much you have to go through.

“That's why I'm so proud of those guys in that room right there,” he said. “That's what I told them, ‘The guys that stuck this thing out, the guys that are in that room need to be really proud.’ They gave it everything they had. Those seniors in particular.”