Luke Fickell has spent the offseason giving Wisconsin plenty of reasons to feel better about where the program is headed. Even so, not everyone is ready to take him off the hot seat.
The Badgers closed the 2025 season with wins over ranked Washington and Illinois, then followed that up with one of their strongest offseasons in years. Fickell and his staff landed 33 transfers to reshape the roster for 2026, while also putting together one of the nation’s best 2027 recruiting classes.
That class includes 10 in-state commitments, among them 4-star prospects Kingston Allen, Cole Reiter, and Korz Loken. Wisconsin also held onto most of the top talent in the state, which had been a criticism during Fickell’s time in Madison.
On paper, the trajectory looks much better. The Badgers are entering the second year of the Jeff Grimes offense, and they have a playmaking quarterback who could change the feel of the season. The foundation is there for the future, too.
But projections don’t win games. Results do.
That’s why Andy Staples of On3 still included Fickell on his list of college football coaches on the hot seat heading into the 2026 season. Staples’ list features nine names, and Fickell is joined by other familiar pressure points such as Florida State’s Mike Norvell, Maryland’s Mike Locksley and Lincoln Riley.
For Wisconsin, the case for patience is obvious. Fickell has been trying to lift the program while dealing with the realities of modern college football, where money often decides who can land top transfer targets, sign elite high school talent and keep its own roster intact.
The Badgers have lost out on plenty of players simply because they couldn’t win the bidding war.
After a difficult 2025 season, when Wisconsin was installing a new offense and battling injuries, the program needed more financial backing to stay competitive. That support appears to have arrived.
Boosters and donors, including Ted Kellner, pledged more money to the program, and Kellner said the new funding would move Wisconsin into the “top third” of Big Ten spending. Before that increase, the Badgers were in the conference’s bottom third.
The early returns are already visible in the transfer haul and the 2027 recruiting class.
Still, the pressure hasn’t gone away. Wisconsin has a new athletic director in Shawn Eichorst after Chris McIntosh left for a job with the Big Ten, and while Eichorst has backed Fickell, he does not have the same built-in connection to him. If the Badgers stumble again in 2026, that support could disappear quickly.
Fickell has checked plenty of boxes this offseason. Now he has to turn that momentum into wins.
In Other News...
Former Badgers Coaches Are Surfacing Together Again In A Familiar Twist
Phil Longo is putting another familiar piece in place at Sam Houston, adding a coach he knows well from two different stops along the way. Longo and Jack Bicknell Jr. worked together at North Carolina in 2022 and later crossed paths again at Wisconsin under Luke Fickell, a coaching overlap that has now carried into Longos latest job with the Bearkats.
Bicknell arrives after his most recent stint at West Virginia, while Longo also brings previous Bearkats experience from his earlier run as offensive coordinator. For Wisconsin fans, it is another reminder of how quickly coaching trees keep branching and reconnecting, especially when former assistants keep finding their way back into the same circles. [Read more 🡒]
Greg Gard Is Sending A Clear Message About Wisconsins Biggest Problem
Wisconsins offseason has made the defensive side of the ball the clear priority after a year in which the Badgers slipped to 56th in KenPom defensively, their lowest mark since 2018. Greg Gard and his staff responded by leaning into players who can help on that end and by putting a heavier emphasis on defensive work early in summer workouts, a sign the reset is being treated as more than a talking point.
Gard has been direct about what the Badgers need if they want to belong in the national conversation again. The standard, as he sees it, has to rise well beyond simply protecting the rim, and the early summer approach suggests Wisconsin is trying to build that habit before the season even starts. [Read more 🡒]
Greg Gard Sends Badgers Fans A Needed Update On Key Big Man
Summer workouts have begun for Wisconsin with a roster mix that includes eight newcomers and six returning players, and the early attention has naturally landed on the frontcourt. Nolan Winter and Austin Rapp are both working back from offseason procedures, giving the Badgers a little extra to monitor as they start laying the groundwork for the 2026 season.
Greg Gards update was encouraging, with the medical staff viewing both forwards as progressing as expected and on pace with the teams timeline. That matters because Wisconsin is counting on them to be part of the answer inside this season, and any early uncertainty in the frontcourt tends to linger longer than anyone wants in July. [Read more 🡒]