Luke Fickell’s transfer portal track record at Wisconsin has had its share of misses, but a few stand out more than the rest when you stack expectations against what actually happened.
This isn’t a list of outright busts. It’s about the transfers who arrived in Madison with a job to do, or at least a certain level of hype, and never quite delivered on it.
Some still have time to change that. Others already moved on.
Either way, the gap between the billing and the production is what makes them stand out.
Tyreese Fearbry lands at No. 5, and he’s still got a chance to climb out of this conversation. He has one season left to play, and the 2026 campaign could be the one that finally matches the buzz he brought with him from Kentucky. So far, though, the most memorable thing about him has been a penalty before the game, not what he’s done once the ball is snapped.
Davis Heinzen comes in at No. 4, and his case is a little different. Wisconsin leaned on him as a veteran with plenty of offensive line experience, bringing him in to start at left tackle.
That plan fell apart quickly. He got overwhelmed, the staff had to pivot to underclassmen, and the move ended up looking like a spot where Heinzen was set up to fail.
He clearly wasn’t a Big Ten player, but he was still brought in as one.
At No. 3 is Tackett Curtis, a 4-star transfer from USC who never came close to matching the excitement around his arrival. He wasn’t a disaster, but he was passed by freshmen and settled in as no more than a rotational piece.
For a player expected to become one of Wisconsin’s next standout linebackers, that’s a steep fall. He later transferred again to UCF.
C.J. Williams checks in at No. 2, and this one stings because the hype was real.
He arrived as one of the most talked-about transfers in the Luke Fickell era, but he never became a major factor. Williams finished with 31 receptions for 396 yards and two touchdowns, numbers that don’t come close to what Wisconsin was hoping for from a 4-star transfer out of USC.
The quarterback situation didn’t help him, and that may be part of the story, but the end result was still a quiet stay in Madison. He later transferred to Stanford and is now on the Jacksonville Jaguars.
And at No. 1, it’s not even a single player - it’s every quarterback transfer in the Luke Fickell era. That’s the harshest verdict on the list, because none of them has met expectations and none has even had a healthy year at the position.
Tanner Mordecai, Braedyn Locke, Nick Evers, Tyler Van Dyke, Billy Edwards Jr., Hunter Simmons, and Danny O'Neil all belong in the same frustrating pile. Fickell still hasn’t gotten the quarterback transfer answer he was looking for, and the list keeps growing.
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