Luke Fickell to Wisconsin was a surprise to many in the national media.
Yes, Fickell had a friendly $3.5 million buyout but unlike the last couple of coaching cycles which saw his name tied to Southern Cal, Notre Dame, and Michigan State among others, the common thought was that Fickell was content to remain at Cincinnati until the big job up the road opened in Columbus.
Embed from Getty ImagesThough Wisconsin has lost a step over the last few seasons, the Badgers have quietly been one of the strongest programs in America over the last two decades. For what they lack in terms of major success in front of a national audience, Wisconsin has made up for with routine consistency.
Consistent success is normally a good thing. When consistency translates into hitting the same ceiling over and over, it can begin to take its toll.
The Badgers are not fancy. The Badgers run the ball and play defense. The Badgers lack pizazz and are proud of it.
As the fictional Badger Dave might say, “There’s often a dull moment in Badger Nation.”
When former Wisconsin head coach Barry Alvarez, a guy who at his height looked the part of a retired mob boss living in Florida, strolling the sidelines of the Rose Bowl with a gold necklace, a gold watch, a gold ring, and, one can only assume, plenty of chest hair, took over the Wisconsin program in 1990, the Badgers had posted five consecutive losing seasons, including four-in-a-row with 3-wins or less.
Embed from Getty ImagesAlvarez, who arrived in Madison after working as the defensive coordinator under Lou Holtz at Notre Dame was also a longtime assistant to Hayden Fry at Iowa and a linebacker as player under Bob Devaney at Nebraska. He was familiar with winning football games in the Midwest and injected confidence into a dejected program.
“I’ve never seen so many big people in all my life as in Wisconsin,” Alvarez said after meeting with coaches around the state. “You shouldn’t have to go far to find linemen.”
The team slowly evolved into a big, physical group which could run the ball on anyone and complemented such play with great defense. In Alvarez’s fourth year, Wisconsin rose to the top of the Big Ten, earning its first Rose Bowl bid since the 1962 season, and challenged Michigan and Ohio State for conference supremacy on a regular basis throughout the rest of his tenure.
Wisconsin did it The Alvarez Way.
The Alvarez Way is not fancy. The Alvarez Way runs the ball and plays defense. The Alvarez Way lacks pizazz and is proud of it.
Alvarez had taken a program which had experienced little more than fits and starts of success throughout its history and turned it into a relentlessly consistent, well-oiled machine. When he stepped aside after the 2005 season to take the Athletic Director role, his handpicked successor, Bret Bielema followed The Alvarez Way and led Wisconsin to a program best 12-1 record in 2006 before winning three-consecutive Big Ten titles in 2010, 2011, and 2012.
However, all was not well in Madison, and Bielema bolted for Arkansas after the 2012 regular season leaving Alvarez to coach the Rose Bowl.
The Bielema move did not send shockwaves across the southeast, but it was considered an embarrassment in the Big Ten country. Not only did the SEC just win its seventh consecutive national title, but now a mid-level team (on a good year) swooped in and poached the head coach away from the back-to-back-to-back Big Ten champs.
In the moment, it was speculated that Bielema made the move due to frustrations over not being able to offer competitive salaries to assistant coaches and Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer was beginning to push the Big Ten into a new stratosphere on the recruiting trail.
Alvarez knew his formula worked and wanted continue to do things his way.
Gary Anderson was a swing and a miss (in terms of program fit although he still won on-the-field), but the Badgers quickly realigned by bringing in long-time Wisconsin offensive coordinator Paul Chryst back to Madison after a brief tenure as the head coach at Pitt.
Chryst followed The Alvarez Way to perfection and led the Badgers to three New Year’s Six Bowl bids and hit the 10-win threshold four times in his five seasons at Wisconsin.
Despite the overall success, Chryst’s Badgers fared well in games in which they were expected to win, but Wisconsin struggled in their biggest games, posting a 12-18 record against Top 25 opponents during his time in Madison.
In many ways, he was the perfect fit for the job, but Wisconsin could not get past its ceiling of a regional power with little national relevance.
One of the reasons for an otherwise successful program struggling when the lights were brightest – you guessed it – recruiting!
Wisconsin may have spent the better part of the previous three decades pushing Ohio State and Michigan on the field, but the Badgers have never been an elite recruiting operation.
Call it the Achilles heel of The Alvarez Way.
Much like the Dan Mullen era finally helped the Florida program come to grips with its lackluster efforts on the recruiting trail, Wisconsin’s on-the-field struggles put the Chryst regime’s recruiting efforts under a microscope.
David Hookstead of Outkick provided some detail on the recent recruiting downturn:
For eight months, Wisconsin more or less didn’t have a recruiting staff after director of player personnel Saeed Khalif left for Michigan State [May 2021], according to The Athletic. Chryst put together “what amounted to a makeshift staff” for recruiting, and it led to at least one disastrous situation.
When Michigan player Jimmy Rolder visited Madison as a recruit, the situation was so disorganized nobody even apparently knew he was there.
“No one talked to him. No one knew who he was or anything about him,” an unnamed source told The Athletic. Rolder eventually landed at Michigan, where he’s having a very nice freshman season.
In a dramatically shifting landscape which has positioned the Big Ten as one of the top two football conferences in America thanks in part to the recent cross-country additions of USC and UCLA, good enough is no longer good enough at Wisconsin.
Chryst is a fine coach.
Wisconsin is a fine program.
But if the Badgers did not make a move now, they would risk falling further behind the Big Ten elites: Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, and, future conference foe, USC.
Embed from Getty ImagesEnter Luke Fickell.
The coach who seemingly was content to stay at Cincinnati and guide the Bearcats into the Big XII next season.
Fickell has worked wonders in Southeast Ohio.
Cincinnati had seen relatively recent success under Brian Kelly and Butch Jones, but the Bearcats fell off significantly under Tommy Tuberville, going from 9 wins in 2013 to a 4-win campaign just three seasons later. Fickell got off to a slow start before ripping off five consecutive seasons of 9 wins or more.
Fickell rivaled Wisconsin’s efforts on the recruiting trail at an AAC school, recruiting at or near the top of the conference on an annual basis while slowly building the first (and to this point, only) College Football Playoff team from a Group of Five conference.
Fickell will no doubt lean on his time with Urban Meyer at Ohio State as the new model for recruiting in Madison. If he can begin to land Top 10, or even Top 15 classes, the world may soon have to reckon with a serious upgrade to the Wisconsin Badgers football program.
In addition to recruiting well, Fickell’s UC staff developed talent on-campus. During the 2022 NFL Draft, Cincinnati had nine players drafted, which was third behind Georgia (15) and LSU (10), per ESPN.
Cincinnati has averaged 31 or more points per game over the last three seasons on the offensive side of the ball and allowed the fewest points per game on defense during that same stretch.
SOURCE: Phil Longo is leaving UNC to go to Wisconsin to become the Badgers OC. He had a prolific offense in Chapel Hill and helped develop Drake Maye into a star this year. He's had a strong relationship with Luke Fickell for awhile and he interviewed for the Cincy OC before.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) December 7, 2022
With the hire of North Carolina OC Phil Longo, Fickell will open up a stagnant Wisconsin offense, a long-overdue move if the Badgers are going to take the next step on the national stage. What Wisconsin will lose in Heisman attention for a workhorse running back every few seasons, they’ll make up for with a modernized offense which features significantly better quarterback and receiver play.
The Alvarez Way works beautifully until the Badgers have to play the Ohio States of the world. As college football is set to expand the playoff to 12-teams in 2024, Wisconsin will need to find a way to step up against the elite if they are ever going to break through and win an elusive national title.
Making the unexpected move to go and get Fickell shows the Badgers are ready – and, more importantly, committed – to taking the next step.
