The Wisconsin Badgers had a big senior class this season. There were 31 players who walked in the senior game ceremony against Illinois. That's a lot of players that Fickell will need to replace this offseason, and to make the transfer portal even more important, he only signed 14 players in his recruiting class.
Let's save you the trouble of doing math: That's 17 players that need to come from the transfer portal this offseason. This isn't even taking into account that Wisconsin will be losing a fair share to the portal of their own. As of today, there are already three Badgers who have declared their intent to jump in the portal as soon as it opens on January 2nd: Kyan Berry-Johnson, Remington Moss, and Atticus Bertrams.
It's replacement season for Luke Fickell with 31 seniors graduating and more jumping in the portal
Related: Wisconsin player jumps in the portal fixing a future offseason battle
Which means that 17 has already jumped back up to 20. It won't stop there; that number will climb before it starts to reduce. Between now and January 2nd, there will be many more players declaring their intent to leave Wisconsin. Some of it will be necessary to upgrade the roster, others will be a sad loss, and still others will be understandable.
That being said, this shows how important the transfer portal will be for Wisconsin. You can expect that Luke Fickell will probably need to get nearly 40 players in the portal, with at least half of them being above replacement level (to use a baseball term). Fickell needs to upgrade this roster, and he has promised he will, and he has even said he has the investment to do it in the portal.
Now, he's starting with a list of 31 seniors, three declared transfers out, and only 14 true freshmen coming in. More is coming; he's got a lot of work ahead of him.