Good luck trying to forecast what the Wisconsin Badgers plan to do with their downtrodden football program. Athletic director Chris McIntosh has preached patience. Yes, there is a potential plan in the works, one that is being executed marvelously by Virginia under Tony Elliott. However, the Luke Fickell era of Wisconsin football needed to end last year. What has happened so far in 2025 has been awful.
Earlier this week, Jim Polzin of the Wisconsin State Journal appeared on WPR's "Wisconsin Today" to discuss what all has gone wrong in Madison with this football team. It is a complicated problem, one that may not be fixed right away. However, good is good, and bad is bad. Nothing we have seen out of the team under Fickell should lead us to believe this thing is going to be getting better any time soon.
This quote from Polzin is perhaps foreshadowing of when Fickell could be coaching his final game...
When Wisconsin Badgers may finally pull the plug on the Luke Fickell era
It might not have been his intention, but Polzin spelled out the Minnesota game as Fickell's final one.
“When you’re getting blown out by teams that you should be competing with — the Iowas, the Minnesotas, the Nebraskas — I think that’s a big red flag. That’s why it’s hard for me to sit here and tell a fan who’s devoted time and money and blood, sweat and tears to be patient.”
What resonates so much about what Polzin said is it hits the hammer on the nail perfectly. In the dawn of NIL and in the era of the latest wave of college football realignment, Wisconsin has been damaged by it. The day and age of keeping pace with Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State may be over. The Big Ten no longer has divisions, but is a more robust 18-team league that now has four Pac-12 programs.
So even if Wisconsin will struggle to keep up with the Michigans, Ohio States, Oregons, and Penn States of the world, the Badgers should not be coming up for dead vs. its three biggest rivals in Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska. Wisconsin may not play Nebraska this year, but the Iowa loss in Heartland was a referendum. To fall to the Golden Gophers in Minneapolis must be the end of the line for Fickell.
Getting worked by your rivals is one thing, but there is something else at play vs. Minnesota this year.
Why losing back-to-back games to Minnesota could be what ends all this
The Minnesota-Wisconsin football rivalry is one of the sport's most storied. It has been played 134 times, the most between any two foes in FBS. Even more impressive, it is all tied up at 63-63-8 ahead of their Week 14 matchup in Minneapolis. Historically, Minnesota had the upper hand ... until Barry Alvarez took over in 1990. Since Alvarez's first game at Wisconsin, Minnesota has won nine times.
One of the reasons the Badgers were able to eat away at the deficit was Wisconsin's incredible 14-game winning streak over the Golden Gophers from 2004 to 2017. Alvarez would occasionally lose to Minnesota. Bret Bielema never did, and neither did Gary Andersen. Paul Chryst did drop a few, but keep in mind how good of a head coach P.J. Fleck has been since leading the Gophers since 2017...
With Minnesota having won four of the last seven meetings, largely coinciding with Fleck taking over, all that good equity put forth by Badgers teams from yesteryear from 2004 to 2017 could be for naught. Given that this might be the only game left on Wisconsin's schedule the Badgers would have a shot at winning, a 10th straight loss on the year may result in Paul Bunyan's Axe being an execution.
It is hard to justify employing a Wisconsin head coach if he cannot beat Iowa, Minnesota or Nebraska.