2025 Wisconsin Season Thread

[Brutus Buckeye]

Fickell made Bert look ridiculous.

No. 21 Illinois Fighting Illini vs. Wisconsin Badgers Highlights | FOX College Football - YouTube



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCp1nXy7MmY

[847badgerfan]

Two ranked wins now, they have to extend that contract and triple the buyout.

Fick you.

[MrNubbz]

Two ranked wins now, they have to extend that contract and triple the buyout.

[Brutus Buckeye]

Discussion on another thread leads me to this: at 4-8 is Fickell necessarily gone? I think even at that record, he probably gets another year. The buyout is substantial, the schedule is rough, and McIntosh might not be far behind him if Fickell gets the axe. But...

3-9 is a real possibility:
Miami-OH: W
MTSU: W
@Alabama: L
Maryland: put in the W column...then...
@Michigan: L
Iowa (at home): no one would be surprised by a loss in this game, which is competitive in the best of times
Ohio State: L
@Oregon: L
Washington at home: the Badgers will badly need this game, and the travel will kick Washington's ass, but...Washington is never a pushover.
@Indiana: I'm still not convinced Indiana wasn't a flash in the pan last season. But if it wasn't, then another L is easy to see.
Illinois at home: this is another one the Badgers will really need, and I'm still not sure Illinois is all it's being cracked up to be right now, but if it is, easy to see another L.
@Minnesota: tough. Imagine the Badgers come into this game with 3 wins. Chances they pull out a 4th?

On the one hand, they could be decent and have three or four wins.
On the other, looking up at Indiana, Illinois, and Minnesota isn't an acceptable place for the program to be. And it shouldn't be chasing Iowa, either.

Hope springs eternal, so let's say they beat Iowa and Washington at home, Indiana and Illinois return towards the mean and the Badgers beat them, then finish off their rival to reclaim the axe at Minnesota. 8 wins. Surprise one of the big four that they are playing? 9 wins. Now I'm probably just hallucinating...

See, most of you expected 3-5 wins with that schedule, and given the circumstances. If he beats Minnesota, then he'd be at the high end of the preseason expectations, and he would have gotten there by winning three of the last four, including two ranked wins, along with the axe, and a blowout win over Bert; with the only loss over that stretch being to a non-flash in the pan, undefeated Indiana. Plus he will have done it while he was down to mascots and cheerleaders at the QB1 position. 

[SFBadger96]

That is all true. I find myself truly puzzled with what happened yesterday. The Defense showed up.

[Brutus Buckeye]

Had he gotten Maryland outside of September, they'd be playing the Gophers with a bowl berth on the line.

[Gigem]

Well, you apparently haven't met a lot of Wisconsin fans. 300# minimum, fed from birth on beer, cheese, and sausage. They might as well have Crisco in their veins.




...and then there's the men!

[bayareabadger]

That game was immensely satisfying.

They also played like you would hope and expect a Luke Fickell team would play. And if his teams played like that across the past two or three seasons, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

[MrNubbz]

Well, you apparently haven't met a lot of Wisconsin fans. 300# minimum, fed from birth on beer, cheese, and sausage. They might as well have Crisco in their veins.

As opposed to you health enthusiasts from the Windy City with your Chicago style Pizza,Old Style Beer & Chicago Style Dogs. Almost announcing excess - mountain spring water surging thru those blood vessels,no need for a cardiologist to set up shop there.

[betarhoalphadelta]

As opposed to you health enthusiasts from the Windy City with your Chicago style Pizza,Old Style Beer & Chicago Style Dogs. Almost announcing excess - mountain spring water surging thru those blood vessels,no need for a cardiologist to set up shop there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9NO24hbe8Q

[Hawkinole]

Three and one-half weeks ago, who thought Wisconsin would defeat, Washington, or Illinois?
The Wisconsin-Minnesota game looks like a toss-up. ESPN predicts a Wisconsin win 51.2% chance. It was a tough schedule. Four to five wins for 2025 seems about right.
A softer 2026 schedule will help. The nonconference schedule includes Notre Dame and Pitt, but the conference schedule is much lighter. If you analyze the 2026 schedule you can rough out better expectations for 2026, than for 2025:

• Notre Dame - in Green Bay - L
• Western Illinois - W
• Pitt - ?
• @ Iowa - ?
• @ Maryland - W
• @ Penn State - L
• @ Purdue - W
• @ UCLA - W
• MSU - W
• Minnesota - ?
• Rutgers - W
• USC - ?

This is entirely speculative, of course, but I can roughly project about 6 wins on this schedule, and four other potentially competitive football games, and only two games where I suspect the odds are so stacked against the Badgers, that a loss would be presumed. The 2026 schedule looks more like an 8-4 record; whereas the 2025 schedule looked more like a 5-7 record. Putting $28M into salaries and NIL, seems like a safer bet than putting $28M into a buyout and having no more funding left for NIL. If Fickell does not produce in 2026, he will be gone.

[SFBadger96]

That is how it looks now, but don't forget that Maryland absolutely shellacked the Badgers at Camp Randall, followed by two games without scoring any points. The Badgers' offense is still terrible. The Badgers did string together one long TD scoring drive. The other TD "drive" was two plays: one was an 84-yard run (which was great). Their other scoring "drives" went 17 (FG), 14 (TD), and 30 (FG) yards.

I'm happy (and stunned) to see the win, and I hope that it's a sign that things are turning around, but I won't believe it for a while. I think there's a decent chance that the Badgers beat the Gophers, which will make for a fun Thanksgiving weekend in my house. But that's because the Gophers probably aren't very good, not because the Badgers have necessarily gotten much better.

I'm sure I'll be optimistic next August--I also can look at the schedule right now and see that the team should at least be bowl eligible next year, without really being much better than it is now. But that's not why Fickell was hired.

It feels weird. I'm not happy that Fickell is still there, but he is, and it will be what it will be. The wins at least give some chance that the fans will continue to show up next season and make Madison a great place on a Saturday in the fall.

[Benthere2]

Fickle is going to get the Axe back 

he is showing improvement

[MrNubbz]

He can't get the axe after winning it I have to axe?