With Week 1 fully underway across all of college football, teams like Wisconsin who played earlier in the week are left with more time to ponder about what all happened, good, bad and downright ugly... While Wisconsin did come out of Week 1 with a 17-0 home shutout of the Miami RedHawks, there was much left to be desired from Luke Fickell's team, especially from an overall coaching standpoint.
Fickell entered the season on the hot seat, but did not do what he needed to do to briefly take himself off it on Thursday night. Although he did attack the transfer portal ferociously to add some much-needed depth to the quarterback room, as well as replacing Phil Longo with Jeff Grimes as his new offensive coordinator, it was largely a struggle to move the ball in the first half with the new personnel.
The good news for the Badgers is starting quarterback Billy Edwards Jr. is only listed as week-to-week with his knee injury suffered shortly before halftime. His backup in San Diego State transfer Danny O'Neil eventually got the offense going in the second half by doing what Wisconsin does best. That is running the football with conviction and playing great defense. Why can Fickell never see that?
With only Middle Tennessee, Alabama and Big Ten play left, Wisconsin did not flex like it should have.
Luke Fickell has to show Wisconsin he deserves to remain Badgers coach
What is getting increasingly difficult to get one's head around is why Fickell seems to be so reticent towards embracing what has made Wisconsin teams from yesteryear so great. Whether it was under Barry Alvarez, Bret Bielema or most recently Paul Chryst, they all made it a point to recruit locally and win with complementary football. This is a football program defined by power, not that of the finesse.
Overall, losing Edwards for the second half had to have limited what the Badgers could do offensively vs. Miami. The defense did a good job of containing RedHawks quarterback Dequan Finn as a runner, forcing him to try and beat them with the pass. He was far too erratic to do much in that department. When push came to shove, Wisconsin got back to what it does later on in the ballgame with O'Neil.
Ultimately, Fickell was a fantastic Group of Five head coach at Cincinnati. He got his players ready to play every Saturday, no matter the opponent. For as much money as Wisconsin is paying him, should Badger fans be expecting more? While there are still plenty of wins to be had on their schedule, Miami was among the easiest to be had, and even that was a challenge... Fickell has to be ready next week.
He needs to show us he can put forth a winning game plan vs. Middle Tennessee with O'Neil starting.