Luke Fickell reveals the biggest change this season — And it's not the offense

Luke Fickell has made his rounds during the Big Ten Media Days, talking about this coming season from the full podium to the individual sitdowns with reporters. In an interview for the Cover 3 podcast, he was asked about the defensive line improvement from last year to this year, and Fickell identified that specifically as the biggest change coming into the year.

It's been an obsession of Fickell's since last year. He called it the breakdown at the end of the season, that the trenches along the defensive line just couldn't hold up. They weren't big enough, and they need to be bigger to compete in Big Ten play. He went aggressive in the transfer portal to add more big bodies. He pushed the current big bodies to get bigger.

And now, he seems like he likes where the room is and he's ready to see it in action.

"If you said, 'Hey, what's the biggest change within your whole entire program?' I'd say the defensive front in particular. Last year, we had one guy who was 300+ pounds. I think right now, going into the season, we might have seven. In particular, upfront, inside a little bit more than anything else. That's been the biggest difference. We knew that was an area where we had to get better...we had to do that through the transfer portal. I think that's been really good for us, we will find out real soon."

Luke Fickell

In the interview, he mentioned how the Badgers only had one player over 300 pounds last season, but this year, Wisconsin "might have seven." While his numbers are slightly off according to the roster database, the idea is the same. They went from a relatively undersized interior defensive line unit to some real big boys.

Wisconsin now has six DL players over 300 pounds

According to the Wisconsin roster from last year to this year. There are two very noticeable changes. One is what Fickell notes, that they have added bigger bodies on the defensive line, mostly via the transfer portal. However, the returning players from last year have almost all beefed up. You can see the breakdown below:

This is crucial to Luke Fickell's defensive philosophy, and, as he said, now we wait to see if it actually works. It went from a weakness in Fickell's mind to a strength. If you want to watch the whole interview, it's below: