The Wisconsin Badgers, fresh off a 28-14 Week 1 win over Western Michigan, have turned the page to their Week 2 matchup with South Dakota.
Head coach Luke Fickell met with the media on Monday to preview the upcoming contest, plus reflect back on his team’s performance against the Broncos and why the Badgers struggled to pull away.
Related: Updated game-by-game predictions for Wisconsin football after Week 1 win over Western Michigan
“Obviously every game you go into, you got a plan. And there are some things that, yeah, you don’t want to do everything in Week 1. But you also don’t know exactly what it is that you’re gonna get,” Fickell explained. “The thing that probably changed as we got into the game as much as anything is, whether we had some other things that we didn’t end up doing, we got a lot of things that we didn’t expect. And credit to them. Defensively they changed up a lot from what we had expected they would be in. And offensively, they really did a lot of different things that we didn’t expect to see as well. Which limits you.”
Fickell dispelled the notion that his staff was saving its true game plan for Week 3’s matchup with Alabama. He went on to sum up why he thought the game remained competitive into the fourth quarter, despite Wisconsin having the clear talent and skill advantage:
“Unfortunately, we played into the hands of the way they were playing. And we weren’t able to take advantage of some of the other things that we need to do a better job of. And I put that on myself.”
In his words: coaching.
Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor brought in a new OC-DC pairing this offseason in Walt Bell and Scott Power respectively. The trio, in Fickell’s words, surprised the Badgers with their game plan and execution. That led to Wisconsin being limited to only 13 points in the first three quarters and needing a 15-point fourth-quarter surge to win the game.
Fickell did go on to highlight the Badgers’ fourth-quarter performance, citing as the biggest area for improvement from 2023 to this year.
“We knew that the number one thing for our program is we have to be able to win fourth quarters. We were challenged in the fourth quarter that’s for sure. But we found a way and played our best ball in the fourth quarter…There’s a lot of things that we are going to be very glad that we’ve been through as we continue to move forward.”
While the team’s performance did not build much confidence in its rest-of-season outlook, the fourth-quarter performance is a legitimate sticking point. In Wisconsin entered the fourth quarter in the lead or within a score in five of its six losses in 2023. It then lost nearly all of those periods — 7-0 against Washington State, 8-0 against Iowa, 3-0 against Indiana and 7-0 against LSU.
The fourth-quarter performance was one of the main factors in several close losses last season. If there any positives to take from an uncomfortable Week 1 win over a low-level MAC opponent, it’s that the Badgers played their best football late.
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