Luke Fickell has spent this offseason doing something Wisconsin badly needed: making people believe again.
That sounds simple, but after a 2025 season that went off the rails at 4-8, it matters. The Badgers enter 2026 with a rebuilt roster, a more manageable schedule and, as the source material puts it, a healthier culture.
The result is a real shift in mood around the program, and Fickell is at the center of it. The chatter is no longer about collapse.
It’s about whether Wisconsin can actually turn this thing around.
ESPN’s Evan Cohen added to that growing buzz this week when he said on “Unsportsmanlike” that he thinks Wisconsin “is back.” He didn’t stop there, either, saying, “There is a buzz around the school like there was when I was there.”
Cohen also tied that optimism to a changed version of Fickell, saying, “He's clearly more of himself. I don't know what happened the last few years...
There is something different... You can feel it right now.”
That’s the part that keeps coming up. This isn’t just one radio host getting swept up in preseason hope.
The feeling around Wisconsin has clearly shifted, and the article argues that Fickell looks more like the coach people knew from Cincinnati and Ohio State. The tone, the energy, the presence - all of it seems different now.
Maybe that’s because of new leadership in the athletic department. Cohen gives credit to Shawn Eichorst, while not fully pinning everything on former athletic director Chris McIntosh.
Maybe it’s the roster overhaul. Maybe it’s the new coaches.
Maybe it’s the quarterback situation, with Colton Joseph and depth behind him. Maybe it’s more money in the program or the new facility.
The piece leaves room for all of that, and the larger point is that Wisconsin feels like a different place.
What makes the turnaround feel even more notable is how flat the program had become. The article describes Wisconsin as a dead program that Fickell has somehow brought back to life, at least in terms of belief.
That’s not the same as results, of course. The wins still have to come, and they have to come soon.
Fickell doesn’t need perfection in 2026. He needs seven wins. If he gets eight or nine, the article suggests that Badger fans will go wild, especially with the schedule in front of them.
There’s also a noticeable change in Fickell himself. According to the piece, he has never sounded or carried himself quite like this before.
Where he once seemed to be hiding, posturing or constantly defending, he now appears to have more fire, more toughness and more life. That doesn’t put anything in the win column, but it does explain why the mood around the program has flipped.
Still, Wisconsin has not won anything yet. There isn’t a single victory on the schedule to point to, and the season begins with Notre Dame.
That opener will tell a lot about whether this renewed confidence is real or just early-summer hope. For now, though, Fickell has done what he had to do: he’s changed the conversation.
Now the Badgers have to back it up.
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For Storr, the timing makes this next step especially tricky. A lot of programs, including Ole Miss, have already mostly finished building their rosters, which leaves fewer obvious landing spots than a player of his rsum might usually expect. Wisconsin coach Greg Gard has pointed to how complicated these situations can be for players trying to navigate multiple moves and, in some cases, a return to a previous team, and Storr now finds himself right in the middle of that uncertainty. [Read more 🡒]
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One of the names that stood out was redshirt freshman Jaimier Scott, who made an interception on opening day and immediately added some intrigue to a position battle that already had a lot of moving parts. Tressel stressed how important that competition will be, and he also made clear the secondary still has room to grow in one area that matters most: turning more of those chances into takeaways. [Read more 🡒]
Jonathan Taylor Just Added Another Huge Milestone For Badgers Fans
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Now there is another marker on the ledger, even if the full financial picture remains part of the intrigue. Taylors latest agreement ensures he will stay with the Colts deeper into the decade, a reminder that his value stretches well beyond individual Sundays. For Wisconsin, it is one more chance to point to a homegrown success story who has gone from Madison to the center of an NFL offense and kept adding to the rsum along the way. [Read more 🡒]