Luke Fickell is a game-changing move for Wisconsin Football

Wisconsin football made a game-changing move on Sunday, hiring a head coach in Luke Fickell that seemingly everybody wanted. 

It shouldn’t shock anyone that Luke Fickell is leaving Cincinnati for a Power-5 head coaching coach. That was always going to happen.

What should surprise people is that Luke Fickell is leaving the Bearcats to head up the Wisconsin football program because that’s not something I expected. But that’s what will happen according to Justin Williams of The Athletic who confirmed that Fickell will be the Badgers’ head coach.

But with Nebraska landing Matt Rhule earlier this week, Wisconsin must have felt that it needed to make a move. Or maybe, Fickell was Nebraska’s first choice and the Badgers were able to win out. Either way, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised.

Many thought Wisconsin football was going to hire Jim Leonhard the up-and-coming defensive coordinator. The Badgers beat Nebraska last week to become bowl eligible but it seems like that was never going to be good enough for Leonhard to get the interim tag removed.

It would be easy to point to another Wisconsin football loss to Minnesota as the reason for this move, but you don’t make a hire like this in one day. This move was telegraphed and it’s a home run for Wisconsin, no doubt about it.

Wisconsin football is taking a huge step forward

Luke Fickell has been named as a candidate for just about every major opening over the last couple of years. He led the Bearcats to the playoff and many thought he was waiting for the Ohio State job.

Yet, maybe that’s not the case or maybe he’s not going to get a chance at it. I still think if that job was offered, he would leave any other college football job for it.

That’s something Wisconsin probably understands. But if Ohio State got rid of Ryan Day, it seems like it might aim higher and that’s probably still a few more losses to Michigan away from happening, no matter what crazy Ohio State fans say.

I’ll say this though, as excited as Nebraska fans are about Rhule, they would have been much more excited about Fickell who was easily the No. 1 head-coaching target not at a major program. He’s built some great defenses and recruited high-end talent to Cincinnati.

But it’s still Cincinnati and even moving to the Big 12, there’s a difference between that league and the Big Ten, especially once Texas and OU head to the SEC.

With the playoff expanding, there’s no reason the Big Ten can’t get multiple teams in every year and if Fickell can restore Wisconsin to the glory days, the Badgers can be right in the mix.

People are saying the same thing about Nebraska and maybe that’s why Wisconsin football felt like it had to make this move, let alone USC and UCLA about to join with their own big-name coaches.

Kudos to the Badgers. When the numbers come out, they are going to be big and it shows that the Badgers are trying to reach the top of the Big Ten and not settling for 8-9 seasons anymore.

There might be some hurt in the short term as a transition, especially on offense, is going to have to take place, but with the transfer portal, rebuilding a program is much faster than it used to be.