Luke Fickell is Building the Badgers' Identity at Wisconsin | Adam Breneman on Big Ten Football

coach want to start with we saw you at St Emos last night what's your St Emo's go-to order well it used to be the uh probably the cowboy of some sorts which finding the largest one on the on the on the menu and now it's kind of trickled down to the uh 8 O fet going smaller um looking back at your career you know year two at Cincinnati you made a huge jump right went for I think 111 some games in year two what what do you think you know how are you taking what you learned then to apply it now to have that kind of jum at Wisconsin I think that uh really kind of reflecting not that I'm a big reflector reflecting on year one and really trying to pinpoint the things that you know that go wrong which things go wrong in every season but in particular in year one of not being as much schematically what do you need to adjust and adapt but is to more environmental culturally what are the things that you need to really attack in order to make sure you're pushing in the right direction yeah was there something when you took that job over that you said you know maybe your first week there that we got to change this right away yeah I thought I thought no I thought that more than anything we just we needed to be competitive and tough and and an overemphasis on things like that and and really neglected um some of the internal things that I thought that cost us in the long run but we're able to change yeah you made kind of a shift in maybe your personal philosophy around offensive football and hired Phil Longo and kind of went with the spread offense how's that transition been and implementing that kind of offense at Wisconsin I I think it's gone it's it's I mean obviously all things have had their ups and their downs and and I think more than anything it's everybody believed like well can you get the fans and people to to buy in and believe but that's not really what's most important it's getting the people within that building to understand believe and buy in and as I learned there are a lot of nuances and there's a lot of development and growth and to me it was more about hey making sure the guys within because you're going to have adversity and when things don't go exactly the way you're planning meaning every white out thinks they're going to catch 75 balls and that's not going to happen um how do you continue to grow with it yeah uh what made Tyler van djk the quarterback you wanted to go get in the transfer portal and how how's he been since he's been on campus well he's done a phenomenal job he's done a better job at really kind of just to you know embracing all the different things coming in being humble uh working earning all things but the number one quality to me that I saw from him is handling adversity I mean he had in three years of a starter in Miami an incredible amount of ups and downs and a lot of really highs and some lows and went through three different offensive coordinators and I mean that that is just so invaluable in your ability to continue to grow and understand that in this everchanging game and especially as a quarterback you're going to be have to handle some of those ups and downs I think you would agree that at Wisconsin you win with offensive line play right tough football you said it with the first answer how do you go about you know making sure you have an elite offensive line and how's that group look so far during this offseason well it starts with development but it also starts with recruiting too um and continues within recruiting there's a history there that that gives us the opportunity to be able to do that but it's then making sure that that can mesh into all the things that we're doing right just because you change the style of offense doesn't mean you change the style of offensive line play and so that ability to continue to to kind of morph um that is important but also is important and I mentioned it before for guys like chz maloi because to me the backs in particular really do set the tone for what physicality looks like like the line's going to be physical and they have no choice The Backs really set the tone for what physicality looks like uh a lot of new changes in college football right nil transfer portal uh I mean even building a program looks different than it looked when you were building it at Cincinnati uh how have you adapted to the portal and how has it impacted your strategy well I I think in the first couple years it unfortunately it probably impacts you a little bit more just because the nature of you know getting some turnover and you know making sure you're you're you're loaded and you lose guys by Nature if they were connected to coaches before and um but I think that you got to be careful I think the toughest thing in college football right now is is the combination of them all um but it's it's trying to plan and build for the future when you're not exactly sure what the future holds meaning like what are the structures what are the you know what are the parameters what are the rules that we're going to be using and living by as we continue to build a program so there's a lot of little nuances in in Corners that are being you know difficult to try to figure out uh but you just got to hone in on on what it is that's important to you and make sure you stick to your uh to your core values last question I got for you coach day one training camp you're talking to your guys what's the message or the goal that you're setting for the season well I think it's it's standards and you're going to hear it from me probably over and over and over again throughout this entire day and you know in the preseason is is it's all about our leadership and and our ability to create to set and to uphold standards that always are evolving within your program based on the type of leaders you have based on the types of things that you know you need to do to continue to grow and so that is the most critical factor for us in these next 39 days awesome coach good luck appreciate thank you so much thank you