The transfer portal hasn't officially opened for Wisconsin and Luke Fickell, but he's dealing with an insane amount of numbers to bring in. And not just for depth, but he needs upgrades across almost the entire roster. He needs starters, not just backups, in the portal. This is a new problem for Fickell, and the roster math is a crazy number. Let's break down the numbers.
Wisconsin listed 31 seniors walking for Senior Night when Wisconsin played Illinois. That's already a pretty big number; add the 15 players currently listed as planning to transfer, and the total jumps to 46 players going out the door. It will end up being more as the transfer portal hasn't even opened yet (that happens on January 2nd).
However, let's just work with what we got and say it's 45 outgoing. Let's add in the incoming freshmen class of 14. That basically negates the transfers, except it doesn't really in terms of readiness. But we are back down to 30ish players needed to replace.
Luke Fickell doesn't just need players, he needs starters and good ones
Related: Wisconsin football transfer portal tracker: Who's out, in, and the speculation
The problem for Fickell is that the vast majority of them need to be better than those leaving. He needs to upgrade, he needs to improve the roster, and he needs starters in the portal. Not all 30 need to be starters, but a good chunk of them.
That's going to be hard to do, and the roster math is going to be tough as he will need to replace about 1/3 of his team. It only gets worse each time another player decides to input their name in the transfer portal.
Without any more names going in, Fickell needs starters at these positions: Quarterback, wide receiver (multiple spots), offensive line, tight end, kicker, defensive line, linebacker (maybe only one), and defensive back (multiple spots). That's nearly every single position. It won't be easy, but the task is in front of Fickell, and the portal will have hundreds of players; it's time to improve the Badgers.