What Luke Fickell said about the OL for Week 1 vs. Notre Dame is concerning

The wait is officially over for Wisconsin Badger fans, as by this time next week, Wisconsin will have already kicked off the 2026 season. The Badgers’ first game, of course, being one of, if not the single most daunting game of the entire season, heading out east to Lambeau Field to take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Notre Dame enters the season as the No. 4-ranked team per the AP Poll, higher than any other opponent on Wisconsin’s schedule this year. So naturally, this is a pretty big game. Not only is it a difficult opponent to open the season against, but it’s also a chance for the Badgers and Luke Fickell to prove that all of the offseason buzz was warranted.

That said, a roadblock has already dropped in the way of Wisconsin — a fairly large one at that. It’s been no secret throughout the course of camp that even with the Badgers being far deeper than in years past, the offensive line group is still a bit volatile.

Concerns Ahead

That volatility has only been kicked into the 10th degree considering the status of two starters, Emerson Mandell and Kevin Heywood, remains largely up in the air. Fickell addressed this in a recent presser, trying to clear up some of the confusion.

“We don't know. There’s still some time for us,” Fickell said. “I couldn't tell you exactly where we are to date right now. That’ll be closer to a game-time decision. Both of them took some reps today.”

In other words, it seems as if the staff may be just as clueless as we are when it comes to what the line will look like in Week 1. The staff has made it fairly clear that they do expect at least one of Mandell or Heywood to miss a significant portion of reps, resulting in Wisconsin getting creative with how the line around them has moved.

Fickell has been quoted saying that he thinks a lot of guys will play over the course of the next week and even potentially into the game itself in order to find a unit that properly sticks together. In an ideal world, the Badgers would get healthier sooner rather than later, but injuries are a part of the sport, and Wisconsin will have to be prepared for them.

Whether the injuries up front will affect the Badgers’ approach to either the run or pass game is still to be seen, but nonetheless, it provides another setback for what could already be a daunting Week 1 matchup.

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