Luke Fickell Deserved the Promotion
Is that what Wisconsin is?
Luke Fickell is ready to become Wisconsin’s next head football coach, where he will enjoy the not-so-unique privilege of being third-best in the Big 10 every year until he hangs up his whistle. In the good years, his Badgers will play in the Citrus Bowl, also known as Not The Grandaddy of Them All. In leaner years, maybe they’ll rejoice in their invitation to the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce on three. Ready. . . break!
He’ll no doubt make more money in Madison than he did in Clifton. Very possibly he’ll sign more players with more stars next to their names. Perhaps, Wisconsin will pony up more NIL money than UC could.
All that really means is, he’ll be not as good as Ohio State and Michigan.
He succeeds Paul Chryst, who went 67-26 in 7 1/2 seasons and for that was fired midway through this one. The back-breaker for Chryst was losing to Bret Bielema-coached Illinois in October. Bielema became coach of the Illini. . . nine years after he left Wisconsin.
Look, no one here expected UC to be Fickell’s destination gig. He has done too much, too quickly not to cash in. But. . . Wisconsin?
Ohio State would have been a no-brainer. We’d have thrown Fickell a metaphorical parade and thanked him for what he’d done. A gem in need of polishing, say UCLA or Texas? Understood. Safe travels. Make us proud.
Wisconsin at its best is almost never better than OSU and Michigan. In 2024, the conference adds Southern Cal. Good luck, Luke, if championships are the goal.
It’s big-picture disappointing. Losing Fickell is a serious blow to UC’s lofty dreams. Fickell showed what a great coach can do for a program with mighty aspirations, same as Tuberville showed how quickly those aspirations can wither in the hands of a bad coach. Success at places like UC is a fragile thing.
Fickell was 57-18 in six seasons at Cincinnati (53-10 since 4-8 in 2017) and got the Bearcats to the Final Four last year. The Group of Five never had a better ambassador. Recruiting was good, Big 12 affiliation was good, the Big 12’s new TV deal was impressive. And now. . .
Big picture, UC has to wonder just how far its aspirations can take it. Can the school do better than Fickell? If it does, somehow, will the new coach truly stick around when he says he will?
Fickell was making $5 mil a year through ‘28 reportedly the most money among all Group of Five coaches when he signed an extension early this year. His assistants also did well. Their salary pool went from $3.9 mil to $5.2 mil. UC did about all it could do for Luke Fickell. There isn’t a T. Boone Pickens hanging around in Terrace Park.
Sometimes, watching UC struggle nobly and successfully feels like a perpetual ride on the hamster wheel.
We shouldn’t begrudge Fickell. He has done too much good and represented the school, the city and the region too well. There are a handful of destination jobs. They start with Alabama and just about end with Michigan and Ohio State. This day would have arrived, eventually.
Only Fickell knows why he thinks Wisconsin is a significantly better gig than Cincinnati. But if his bottom line is to coach the last team standing in any given year, he didn’t help himself Sunday.
Congrats to him, I guess. He more than earned the promotion. Is that what we call it?
Time to hop back on the hamster wheel.
After taking 24 hours to process this information, I am still disappointed but I am starting to understand his decision. As much as we tried to adopt Luke and his family, they are not "Cincinnati People" and probably never thought of this place as home. I agree with Doc that I would have expected him to take a more high profile job than Wisconsin but when you objectively compare the two opportunities, Wisconsin is a slightly better gig and it might even be easier than his situation in Cincinnati.
1. NIL - we can all argue what NIL has done for the college game but it is the reality of our situation. I heard that the Cincinnati program was able to scramble together $2-$3MM of NIL dollars, which is formidable. However, getting an NIL fund of $10MM+ should be a walk in the park at a place like Wisconsin.
2. Assistant Pool: Over the past couple of years, Fickell has lost countless coordinators to greener pastures - Mike Mickens (ND), Denbrock (LSU), Freeman (ND), Brian Mason (ND). Some of this was probably due to the allure of coaching at a blueblood program but a lot of it has to do with money. I am hearing that Fickell's assistant pool will now be up to $10MM vs the $5.2MM he had with UC.
3. Big 12: Although it is certainly an upgrade from the AAC, the Big 12 is watered down and is starting to look like a conference of misfit toys. The College Football Playoff Committee seems to share this sentiment with their treatment of TCU over the past couple of weeks. The Big 12 will be a nice league but it will always be on the outside of the Big 10/SEC superpower affiliation.
4. Big 10 West: You can make a sound argument that winning the Big 10 West (Purdue won this year) with more financial resources is way easier to win the AAC/Big 12 with UC's financial situation and lack of stable coordinators.
College Football is changing for the worse. It stinks because the game has so much to love on a micro level - great atmosphere (more wholesome), unique rivalries, regional culture etc. But the macro level issues continue to overshadow the simple beauties of the game.
Fickell, while a good recruiter and ambassador, is not a great coach. There is no doubt that he brought in talent. But we were such an undisciplined team under his watch. From costly penalties, cheap shots and helmets coming off, etc…we were terrible. It cost us games this year and that is on him! you’ll have a hard time convincing me that our helmet situation had anything to do with faulty equipment. Strap your helmet on properly and play the game! Our opponents never had that problem and their helmets are the same as ours. It was the little things that he lacked in my opinion. Great coaches make mistakes and they fix em. He didn’t. Go get Brian Hartline from OSU. he’d be a great fit here if we could pursuade him to come!