Big Ten coaches hammer Luke Fickell for failed attempt at Air Raid offense

Big Ten coaches are not scared to share their thoughts on their peers, at least when anonymity is involved. They recently let loose on Luke Fickell for his failed offensive shift at Wisconsin.

After the 2022 season, the Badgers opted to move on from interim coach and longtime defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard. That’s because Wisconsin was able to land Fickell, then the head coach at Cincinnati.

On the surface, the hiring made all kinds of sense. Fickell has Midwest roots after playing at Ohio State and spending over a decade on the coaching staffs of Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer. That tenure included a season for Fickell as the interim coach in Columbus.

After that, Tressel cut his head coaching teeth at Cincinnati, where he built a solid Bearcats program with a 57-18 record across 6 seasons. From 2019-22, the Bearcats lost just 8 games with a College Football Playoff appearance and a New Year’s Six Bowl.

However, things quickly took a left turn in Madison when Fickell opted to bring in Phil Longo from North Carolina. Longo had just come off a dynamic year guiding rising star Drake Maye, but his Air Raid philosophy struck many as an odd transition from the old glory days of Badger football.

The reasons why things did not work with Longo vary, but it’s fair to call his tenure with Fickell a massive disappointment. Wisconsin has finished 93rd and 109th (out of 133 teams) in scoring offense in Fickell’s 2 seasons with Longo.

That decision to even try the Air Raid transition is one Fickell’s peers piled on when Athlon Sports released its annual piece with anonymous comments from Big Ten coaches. One coach itted the hiring of Longo never made sense in any area, but a return to some shades of a “classic” Badger offense will be helpful.

“Nothing about the offense made sense here. [Phil] Longo moving on benefits everyone involved, and if they bounce back and become more of a modern version of that classic Wisconsin power run offense, you’ll wonder why they ever made the move in the first place.”

Another coach even said Fickell looks like the right guy to lead the program, though the offensive issues have been so glaring that some fans might begin to lose faith in the plan:

“[Luke] Fickell is the guy, but the offensive issues have overshadowed the overall plan so much that it’s easy to see why some folks might lose faith. I think they just overreached on trying to modernize the program schematically.”

The good news? A different coach described new OC Jeff Grimes as the right hire to get the offense back on track, along with some key newcomers via the transfer portal.

“[Jeff ] Grimes is a great hire, and they flipped the entire offense except for the backs. They need to go back to Wisconsin football this season, and they’ve got a young backfield that can do it.”

At this point, there’s nothing beneficial for Fickell and the Badgers in looking over their shoulders at the past. It’s time to move forward with Grimes and hope he can turn things around this fall.