Luke Fickell has even his biggest doubters changing their minds, and it's about time

It's not hyperbole to say that Luke Fickell is in a make-or-break season. This year is a big test: a rebuilt roster, with a more manageable schedule, and a healthier culture should lead to a much better season than the 2025 four-win disaster. There's a lot of energy and excitement around the program, and Fickell has done wonders getting fans and media personalities to lean back in and consider what 2026 can be. He's changing minds and hearts, and now the product on the field has to match it.

ESPN Host of "Unsportsmanlike" Evan Cohen publicly declared that he thinks Wisconsin "is back." His dialogue on the show was another example of people changing their tune on Fickell and the Badger football program. "There is a buzz around the school like there was when I was there." He points to a couple of major things and even a change in Luke Fickell, and he's spot on. Something feels different.

Luke Fickell has somehow driven optimism back into a dead program

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Cohen's point is that Fickell is back to the coach he was at Cincinnati and Ohio State. He doesn't fully blame former athletic director Chris McIntosh, but he certainly gives credit to new athletic director Shawn Eichorst. Yet, it's the Fickell comments that stick out: "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."

Cohen isn't the only media personality saying this. He's also not the only Wisconsin backer or fan that's speaking this way. There truly is something unique happening at Wisconsin, and it didn't take a fired coach to get there. There's a buzz, an energy, an excitement, and Fickell doesn't need to be perfect in 2026, but he has to find seven wins. If he finds eight or nine, which is realistically possible with the schedule in front of him, Badger fans will lose their mind.

Fickell does feel different; he's never talked this way before, and he's never walked this way. It almost felt like he was hiding, posturing, and defending at all times. This year, he's got a fire in his belly and toughness about him that he's pushing into his program. He seems more alive and excited. While he still needs to prove it in wins on the field, it's weird as a fan to come off a four-win season and have optimism.

Maybe it's the new roster? Or the new coaches? Could it even be the new quarterback and the depth behind Colton Joseph? Maybe it's more money in the program or the new facility? Or truly a combo of all of it, but Wisconsin is in a different place, and yet they aren't in the record books. There hasn't been a single win on the schedule since defeatism flooded into the fanbase. Hats off to Fickell for changing that momentum, but now let's see it with wins.

And it's not going to be an easy start with Notre Dame the first game on the schedule.

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