At least the Wisconsin Badgers are not going to lose this week... That is because they are on the first of their two annual byes. Wisconsin had an opportunity to enter its first bye with some momentum, but much-maligned head coach Luke Fickell popped the balloon with his foot in the first quarter vs. Maryland. The only person who seemed to enjoy the loud sound was his boss in one Chris McIntosh.
Even though three Power Four head coaches have been fired before the end of September, Fickell is not expected to be canned like DeShaun Foster, Brent Pry and Mike Gundy has, strictly for financial reasons. His buyout is massive and complicated, but one that people are growing tired of trying to justify. It seems as though Fickell and McIntosh are fat-catting it, while Wisconsin athletics unravels.
Phil Hands' latest political cartoon for the Wisconsin State Journal really drives home the point here.
Is Luke Fickell's contract too big to fail? Check out my latest cartoon for the @WiStateJournal. @UWBadgers #wisfb https://t.co/npWBDsXNFx pic.twitter.com/aEorOvmyz0
— Phil Hands (@PhilHands) September 24, 2025
Hands depicts Bucky Badger carrying Fickell and McIntosh's massive contracts in a giant sack on his back. Fickell and McIntosh are clinking champagne glasses in a sack of money. The joyless burden Bucky Badger is holding onto lets out this damning sigh of a statement: "At least Don Morton wasn't too big to fail!" Morton was Wisconsin's head coach before Barry Alvarez, going 6-27 from 1987-89...
The fact Hands is comparing Fickell to Morton in this illustration suggests history is repeating itself.
Wisconsin paying Luke Fickell, Chris McIntosh is lighting money on fire
Under their direction, Wisconsin football has gone from bad, to worse, to downright ugly... This is without question a bottom-tier Big Ten football team. Outside of UCLA and maybe Northwestern, how many teams in the Big Ten are the Badgers definitively better than, honestly? Yes, the nature of Fickell's buyout is a perpetual eyesore, but Gundy getting fired should prove that not a soul is safe.
With who Wisconsin has left on the schedule, this team may not win a game the rest of the way. Anyone with a pulse and a braincell could have told you the Maryland was the easiest Big Ten game Wisconsin drew this year. Yes, the Badgers' Big Ten schedule is unforgiving, but Morton could do a better job of coaching this team than Fickell. Honestly, let's see if Alvarez wants to spoil us rotten?
In the end, this all comes down to how much pain and suffering the University of Wisconsin-Madison can suffer at the expense of all these financial ramifications. Fickell is so cooked and he knows it. This was a bad hire when he left Cincinnati, but nobody wanted to admit that at the time. For now, Badgers fans need to start gearing up for basketball season because the football team is a complete disaster.
Money talks and other stuff walks but when will the dollars and cents start to make sense in Madison?