The world has turned and left the Wisconsin Badgers here... Heading into their second bye of the season, the Badgers are 2-6 on the season, 0-5 in Big Ten play, and have not beaten a Power Four team in over a calendar year. Just because this team was able to get into the end zone a single time vs. a top-tier team does not recuse the Badgers from being the worst Big Ten program by a long shot.
So here we are in the midst of another week and another Power Four head coach skipping the line to be fired before Luke Fickell's inevitable day of reckoning. With Brian Kelly out at LSU, this actually does more harm than good when it comes to the overall likelihood of Fickell's eventual termination. Yes, Kelly is now available to conceivably replace Fickell in Madison, but people are still piling on him.
The reason LSU's decision to pull the plug on Kelly's fake cajun experiment gone awry is so bad for Wisconsin is multi-pronged. First, another better job than Wisconsin has now become available. Two, it may prevent the right candidate from actively pursuing Wisconsin, should it open up. And three, this might soften the blow to the increasingly tired fan base that Wisconsin will give Fickell one more year.
The worst part in all of this is it might distract someone like James Franklin from coming to Madison...
LSU firing Brian Kelly adds unpredictable variable to Wisconsin's demise
Could Kelly be a fit at Wisconsin? Absolutely. He specializes in developing offensive linemen and tight end play, in addition to screaming himself Tom Coughlin purple on the sidelines. Kelly may be on the wrong side of 60, but Wisconsin may not have to pay him a boatload, as LSU will be on the hook for the bulk of his contract. It almost levels out the financial costs of moving on from Fickell in the end.
In a way, Kelly would serve as an ideal bridge to something better beyond what the Badgers are experiencing under Fickell. Again, age is not on his side in this. It is why Franklin may be the best available candidate ... right now. Others could potentially leave their current places of employment at the end of the season. For now, Franklin has shown he can win in the Big Ten, as well as in the SEC...
And that right there is the biggest problem in all of this. Franklin may not have been the biggest problem in Happy Valley. It may, in fact, be a Penn State problem. In a way, Penn State is the rough equivalent of Auburn in the Big Ten. Even when Auburn is good, it still has to deal with Alabama and Georgia on an annual basis. The Big Ten still has Ohio State and Michigan, now Indiana and Oregon.
Franklin did great things previously at Vanderbilt, although not to the level of what Clark Lea is doing in Nashville now. Not to say he should be the guy LSU should pursue, but he is a candidate. More importantly, he is available. All of the other Power Four openings between UCLA, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State, Arkansas, Penn State and Florida were never going to be this kind of distraction...
In the end, LSU becoming available might be what prevents Wisconsin from opening up this winter.