It was not that long ago that Wisconsin could hold its own vs. the very best teams the Big Ten could ever hope to offer. Now the Badgers are struggling to win games in league play. A lot has gone into the demise of the football program as we know, but not much has been said about where seemingly all of the good Wisconsin players have gone to. It did not take long for us to realize that it was Indiana.
It is amazing what a difference good coaching can make. Since Curt Cignetti took over an IU last year, the Hoosiers have gone a combined 15-2. This includes a 11-win season last year, the program's first ever playoff appearance to date from a season ago, and a 4-0 start to the campaign. If you were to take a look over at Wisconsin, the Badgers have gone a combined 7-9 under Luke Fickell since 2024.
If you need any more proof of where the good Wisconsin football culture went, please check this out.
Riley Nowakowski explains why he transferred from Wisconsin to Indiana
During an episode of Under the Hood, IU tight end Riley Nowakowski explained why he transferred.
"Just the culture, the culture of the guys. The locker room. It seemed like everybody was in it, and in it for the right reasons. Everyone was committed, showing up every day."
Nowakowski spent his first five college football seasons playing different positions for the Badgers.
“I took my official visit when they were about to play Notre Dame and everybody was so locked in. I get it’s the playoffs, but it’s December, you’ve already been in season for 4-5 months now. It’s tough to get scouts, twos and ones all locked in for that whole amount of time. When I came here it seemed like everybody was itching, like they were still hungry like it was Week 1 or Week 2."
Clearly, Cignetti and the Wisconsin program left an indelible impression on this sixth-year senior.
“That showed me the mentality of Cig, and then talking to him and how he is, there was just this like sense of urgency, and never being satisfied. That’s something that my parents always brought me up with, like hey ‘I don’t care if we’re up 50 points, 60 points, I don’t care if we’re down 20, it’s the same mentality over and over again. I don’t care if life is coming at you hard, or you’re living the good life, you’ve got to still approach life the same way every day.’ So that was a really big thing that drew me to Cig and this program.”
Here is the entire episode of Under the Hood where Nowakowski spoke about transferring to Indiana.
Through four games, Nowakowski already has four catches for 72 yards and a touchdown for Indiana.
Why Riley Nowakowski's Indiana transfer is such a Wisconsin indictment
While there have been fleeting moments where Indiana football is halfway decent, the Hoosiers appear to be in the midst of a golden era under Cignetti. Last year's team may have navigated a soft schedule to make the College Football Playoff. While this year's schedule for Indiana is no different, the Hoosiers are playing like a team that has leveled up together and is exuding a ton of confidence.
In the new Big Ten, there might be around six teams annually who can realistically compete for one of up to four playoff berths. Prior to the latest wave of realignment and a few questionable coaching changes, was Wisconsin not among the upper crust in the Big Ten hierarchy? Perhaps we have gotten greedy, but Wisconsin had been a dynamo under previous coaching regimes for decades...
Although teams like Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State are probably always going to be good in the new Big Ten, Indiana effectively taking Wisconsin's seat at the table just goes to show all that has gone wrong in Madison over the last few years. This is not to say that Indiana needs to regress to the mean for Wisconsin to get what it believes it deserves, but IU is putting in the work Wisconsin is not.
The more the Hoosiers wins, the more attractive they will be to players who could play for Wisconsin.