Luke Fickell’s downturn at Wisconsin begins and ends with QB development

As Wisconsin prepares for a showdown with No. 1 Ohio State on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS, CBSSports.com, CBS Sports App, Paramount+ Premium), an obvious reality looms over the program: Luke Fickell is battling for his job.

The Badgers have lost four straight games, including a 37-0 drubbing to Iowa that Fickell described last Saturday as “that’s low as it can be.” Wisconsin athletics director Chris McIntosh gave Fickell his support on Sept. 20 after a loss to Maryland. But industry sources have continued to note that Fickell’s seat is as hot as anyone’s in the country. A reality that’s especially notable with the Badgers preparing to face Ohio State and Oregon in back-to-back weeks ahead of a bye.

This leads one to wonder: What happened?

How did a program that used to be a bastion of consistency — 22 straight winning seasons from 2002 to 2023 — and a coach who took Cincinnati to the playoff just three years ago fail together?

There’s never one answer. But there is an obvious place to start — quarterback.

It’s been a disaster.

Due to a run of horrendous injury luck and questionable takes, the Badgers have never ranked better than 108th in passer rating and only once had a QB finish among the top 60 in ESPN’s QBR metric.

That bad quarterback play — a huge problem given the Badgers’ 2023 offensive shift to the Air Raid under former OC Phil Longo — has doomed Fickell, who is 1-15 in games against Power Four competition when the opponent scores more than 20 points.

Wisconsin’s QB takes under Fickell

Modern college football provides a pair of avenues to address the quarterback spot– transfers and high school development. Let’s look at Wisconsin’s takes in those areas over the last three years. Transfer and high school recruit ratings are courtesy 247Sports.

Transfers

High school recruits

Big misses out of high school

Let’s get the high school takes out of the way first. They’ve been horrendous.

The jury is still out on Smith, who is considered more of a gamer than an elite thrower of the football. But LaCrue — an inherited take from the old staff — and Mettauer just didn’t work.

LaCrue is now at Eastern Illinois while Mettauer is now the backup quarterback at Sam Houston, where Longo is the head coach.

Longo never came close to landing an elite passer in his two full seasons as a recruiter at Wisconsin.

Those misses along with several cycles of them by Paul Chryst’s staff — now Albany QB Myles Burkett in 2022, current Utah Tech QB Deacon Hill in 2021 and no QB in 2020 — forced Fickell to turn to the transfer portal in search of fixes every offseason.

Bad luck with transfer QBs

To the Badgers’ credit, their quarterback takes out of the portal have been good, at least on paper.

Mordecai threw for 7,000-plus yards at SMU the two seasons prior to him arriving in Madison. He was an ideal fit for the system that Longo wanted to run, and he did have success. Mordecai completed 65% of his passes with the Badgers, led the team to a 6-3 record in games he played start to finish while averaging 27.8 points per game.

Unfortunately, Mordecai missed three and a half games with an injury and Wisconsin went 1-3 in those contests while averaging 13.8 points.

And that was a GOOD injury luck season for Wisconsin in terms of its portal takes.

Wisconsin didn’t go for a top-of-the-market QB during the 2024 offseason. Instead, getting Van Dyke on a bit of a discount coming off a down season with Miami. The Badgers started 2-0 with Van Dyke as the starter and there was optimism in the program he’d regain his 2022 form. Then Van Dyke suffered a torn ACL in Week 3 against Alabama. Wisconsin finished 3-7 the rest of the way, averaging just 21.6 points per game with Van Dyke out of the lineup.

When Wisconsin reworked its quarterback room in the wake of the Fickell hiring, it considered Locke and Evers basically high school takes. Both were underclassmen and both were former high-profile recruits who fit, at least on paper, what Longo wanted to do offensively.

But neither really worked out.

Locke, who is now at Arizona, played a lot in 2023 and 2024 as the starter in the absence of Mordecai and Van Dyke. But he largely struggled with a 53.6 completion rate. As for Evers, he never threw a pass for the Badgers, spending one season in Madison before transferring to UConn.

Then, for a second time in three offseasons, the Badgers overhauled their QB room.

Wisconsin fired Longo and hired Kansas offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes, who brought a wide zone scheme to Madison that was more rooted in the program’s history of winning with the run game and along the lines of scrimmage.

This time, Wisconsin spent big to lure Edwards away from Maryland. Edwards, who received well into the million-dollar range, per sources, was supposed to be a bridge to the future. A solid, one-year option who could help steady the offense and provide a semblance of consistency.

Instead, Edwards suffered a knee sprain in Wisconsin’s opener against Miami (Ohio). He then suffered a setback to the same knee trying to come back on Sept. 20 against Maryland. He hasn’t played since.

Three years, three high-profile transfers and two brutal injuries.

Wisconsin brought in O’Neil, a starter as a true freshman at San Diego State in 2024, with the intention that he could redshirt. Instead, he got thrown into action immediately. O’Neil had some flashes and is competing 70.6% of his passes. But he’s thrown at least one interception in every game and got benched for Simmons, a FCS transfer who was brought in to be experienced depth.  

Simmons isn’t fairing any better. He’s completing 55.9% of his passes and has thrown for 329 yards in three games.

It may be too late to fix

Wisconsin’s handling of quarterbacks is mostly bad luck, but there’s a fair number of self-inflicted wounds given some of the takes for the program out of high school.

The Badgers do have an intriguing high-upside 2026 quarterback take in the boat in Mater Dei (California) starter Ryan Hopkins, who is an incredible athlete with a sub-11-second time in the 100-meter dash.

But the reality is, Fickell and his staff might not get a fourth offseason to fix their quarterback quandary. Moving to the Air Raid was a mistake in retrospect. The lack of high-level quarterback play didn’t help, but neither did the Badgers’ lack of legitimate playmakers on the outside. Those are just not players easily found in Wisconsin’s high school recruiting footprint. 

Worse still, shifting to the Air Raid for two seasons seems to have sapped the program’s usual identity of dominance in the trenches. The current Badgers’ O-line ranks 91st in PFF’s pass blocking metric and 119th in run blocking among FBS programs.

A good quarterback might help make up for some of those shortcomings up front, and it’s not as if Grimes’ system requires elite offensive linemen to thrive. But a mid-stream swerve of philosophy leaves very little margin for error as Fickell attempts to prevent his program from taking on additional water.

And a tidal wave in the form of Ohio State and Oregon are coming soon.