In the summer leading up to this Wisconsin Badgers football season, Wisconsin State Journal columnist Jim Polzin encouraged the fanbase to be patient with head coach Luke Fickell.
It’s now months into the season, and his patience has run out. In a more recent column, Polzin admitted he was wrong, as fans at Camp Randall Stadium have repeatedly chanted “Fire Fickell” to express their displeasure with the state of the football program.
The Badgers have lost their last six games in a row and are on track for their worst season since the early 1990s.
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Polzin told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that the concerns date back to the team’s collapse last year, and it’s a far cry from the high expectations that Fickell brought to Madison when he arrived in 2022
“When you’re getting blown out by teams that you should be competing with — the Iowa’s, the Minnesota’s, the Nebraska’s — I think that’s a big red flag,” Polzin said. “That’s why it’s hard for me to sit here and tell a fan who’s devoted time and money and blood, sweat and tears to be patient.”
Patience, however, is still the message coming from the Wisconsin athletic department.
Last week, athletic director Chris McIntosh released a public letter to Badgers fans, acknowledging that the on-field product hasn’t been good enough and pledging to invest more money and resources into supporting Fickell and the team.
While the letter didn’t provide details on the intended investment, Polzin expects that will come in the form of more money toward recruiting and paying athletes through name, image and likeness, or NIL, deals that have become the standard method in college sports for acquiring the best players.
“The biggest issue in talking to fans is that there’s no transparency,” Polzin said. “No one really knows how much Wisconsin is devoting to NIL, compared to others in the conference and beyond.”
He also questions whether more money will solve the problems facing Badgers football.
Fickell and his staff will have to identify the right players to bring in and develop them once they’re here, something Polzin hasn’t seen enough of from the current regime.
The alternative that frustrated fans are seeking would be for McIntosh to invest in buying out the remainder of Fickell’s contract and replacing the coaching staff. Some want to see University of Wisconsin Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin replace the athletic director as well.
If the Badgers fire the head coach after the season ends, they would owe Fickell north of $25 million — to not coach the team. Though Polzin noted the two sides would likely negotiate that price down.
If Wisconsin opted for a coaching change, they would join in an unprecedented trend of head coach firings across college football this season.
College football firing spree
Since September 14, 10 major college football programs have fired their head coach. The combined total of the buyouts they’re owed is nearly $170 million, a record amount according to ESPN.
College sports business reporter Amanda Christovich told “Wisconsin Today” that major donors are often the ones stepping up to help cover these costs.
“College football is a very emotional sport,” Christovich said. “If you look at the programs that have fired some of the most notable coaches — like Penn State firing James Franklin or LSU firing Brian Kelly — they’re not necessarily bad coaches. But they just are coaches who haven’t lived up to the potential of these programs that are expecting excellence.”
One of the Badgers’ most prominent donors, philanthropist and businessman Ted Keller, told Polzin this week that he supports McIntosh and Fickell continuing to run the Wisconsin football program.
The landscape around the support continues to change with the NCAA recently instituting revenue sharing for players following a legal settlement.
Christovich is following other court cases against the NCAA and thinks future rulings will continue to change the rules of the sport, off the field.
“It’s very clear that the current system is not going to be the final system,” Christovich said. “So with all this change that we’ve already had, expect more that is beyond just this current system normalizing.”
Congress is considering multiple pieces of legislation that would govern college sports. One of the biggest challenges facing Fickell and McIntosh will be trying to keep up with whatever changes next.
