Melvin Gordon joined ESPN Madison on the phone and shared what it's like to be a Badger right now, how he's feeling, what the team should do, and even his thoughts on why Chris McIntosh made this decision. He called the last few years tough and even said the players need to play with pride now because "it's embarrassing."
When trying to understand Chris McIntosh's decision to keep Luke Fickell for another season he said, "It sounds like Chris [McIntosh] is hard on keeping [Fickell] there. I get it, that was his first big hire, if that looks bad, he looks bad so I guess he's throwing all the marbles in on it."
"I don't know what we need to do at this point..."@Melvingordon25 with his thoughts on where #Wisconsin Football currently stands...#OnWisconsin | @JimMattMolly pic.twitter.com/qVkN3PMUTV
— ESPN Madison (@ESPNMadison) November 7, 2025
Melvin Gordon says it's been a rough couple of years to be a Badger
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He joins what many Badger fans have thought when it comes to McIntosh and Fickell, that McIntosh is banking his job on Fickell rebounding, and that maybe there's too much pride in McIntosh to fire him and move on. It takes a lot of humility to swallow that your first big hire wasn't a good one.
Chris McIntosh clearly believes that Luke Fickell can turn this program around, even though Fickell is the one who dug this hole so deep.
Melvin Gordon said he also still has optimism that things can get right. He didn't commit to whether that is Fickell, but he believes it can be turned around. Yet, he said, "the last couple of years it's been tough to be a Badger."
What do they do to fix this? Melvin Gordon says he has no idea, but that it certainly needs to be fixed. As for what to do in the meantime, he said he would tell the recruits to play for their pride, play for something bigger than themselves, and dig into whatever chip they need to play with some passion.