Wisconsin gave Luke Fickell more than $25 million for 2026 and it still isn't enough

Luke Fickell has yet to succeed at Wisconsin, and his track record as a Badger isn't great. Each year seems to get worse than the last. 2026 is set to change that, and it's partially due to an increased investment in the program. Outgoing athletic director Chris McIntosh said that the losing wasn't Fickell's fault but a lack of investment in the program. Supposedly, this offseason that changed; the big talking point was that football would be in the top 1/3 of the country in money spent on a football roster.

Now The Athletic has come out with a report with data and numbers backing up where each program falls in average spending. There's clearly been a bump up in money spent on the roster for Fickell in 2026, but it's not enough when you take in the landscape of the rest of the Big Ten. In fact, the unfettered spending is a reminder of how unsustainable it all is for college football.

There's a bit of a good news/bad news situation happening for Wisconsin in all this reporting, and yet somehow Fickell will need to find ways to win because of and in spite of it all.

Luke Fickell's reported Wisconsin roster cost is somewhere between $27-31 million

Related: The 3 biggest fixes Wisconsin must make from Week 2 to do laps around Eastern Michigan

The Badgers are the only team that fit squarely in the conference average zone and are listed as the eighth highest-spending team in the Big Ten. That's not quite top 1/3 in the Big Ten, but it's probably around there in terms of the entire nation as you start to add in other conferences that aren't the SEC or the Big Ten. However, it's not enough.

With Oregon and Ohio State well up in the $50 million range, the Badgers aren't even close. Wisconsin is a good $20 million off. If that's what it takes to win a National Championship, how is that even sustainable? Or how will other teams even make a run? It will take black magic to somehow find success with that sort of money on the table.

You'll also see that the rich are really rich in the Big Ten and the poor are really poor. Purdue isn't even at $20 million in roster construction. Oregon and Ohio State are more than double what Rutgers, Purdue, Iowa, and Minnesota are working with.

Which, in some ways, is the good news. Fickell has increased his spending; he was reportedly down there with those bums before. Now, he's got a better roster; can he do something with it?

The bad news is, Wisconsin is still nowhere close to where the top programs are. He needs to find a way to do more with less. If he can take his $30 million and find the same percentage success that Iowa is finding with their $20 million, there's a chance, but it feels like a long shot, and so far, Fickell has not been able to do more with less.

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