Under a cloudy Florida sky, Wisconsin offensive coordinator Phil Longo and defensive coordinator Mike Tressel were reluctant to spend too much time looking ahead to their to-do lists for the 2024 season, citing the fact they’ve put the energy into preparing their current players for the No.13 LSU in the ReliaQuest Bowl.

That moment has come and gone, and the results from Monday’s New Year’s Day bowl show the Badgers have a big hill to climb to get to where they ultimately want to go.

Head coach Luke Fickell admitted the hurt the 35-31 loss to No.13 LSU inflected, mainly because the Badgers followed the storyline that encapsulated their disappointing 2023 season – in position for success and unable to achieve it.

“We wanted an opportunity to get this thing to the fourth quarter and find an opportunity to finish,” Fickell said. “That’s probably been as big of our Achilles’ Heel all year. I'm proud of these guys. They got us to a position where we had an opportunity to finish. We just didn't get it done."

A team that was picked to win the Big Ten West and compete for a conference championship ended up finishing 7-6 for the second straight season, only this time there wasn’t a midseason coaching change involved.

Slow starts and minimal explosive plays were crippling all season (only 33 first-quarter points and 13 opening-drive points scored) but the Badgers went 78 yards in five plays to open the scoring and tacked on a 53-yard touchdown eight minutes later, scoring a pair of first-quarter touchdowns for the first time since Sept.22.

UW had a season-high 506 total yards, a 375+ yard passer, two 100-yard receivers, and averaged 6.2 yards per carry between its top two tailbacks. It meant little when UW blew a pair of 14-point leads, got outscored, 21-3, in the final 25+ minutes of game time, and ended the game giving up sacks on three consecutive plays.

The last score was the big gut check, watching LSU go 98 yards in eight plays with reserve quarterback Garrett Nussmeier delivering consecutive completions of 37 and 53 yards on the drive. Nussmeier was named the game MVP after he completed 31 of 45 passes for 395 yards, with three touchdowns and one interception. Even more striking than the passing numbers was Nussmeier wasn’t sacked or pressured once by a Wisconsin pass rush that could best be described as feeble all season.

Tressel believed there wasn’t a team in the country that was comfortable with its depth along the defensive line or at cornerback. Both of those positions showed their youth against the Tigers.

LSU was best in the nation in plays of 20+ yards (102), 30+ yards (51), and 40+ yards (29). Even with Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Jayden Daniels opting out and star receiver Malik Nabers sitting out the second half, the Badgers’ defense allowed four players to have a gain of at least 25 yards.

“We couldn’t pressure the quarterback,” said Fickell, as UW finished 42nd nationally in tackles for loss (6.0 per game) and 56th in sacks (2.23 per game). “They did a really good job up front of protecting him, buying him time, and really letting him throw the ball.

“You can look at it that you didn’t play well in the back end, and they threw balls on you, but there is a balance. If you can’t get to the quarterback, you can’t make him throw under duress, it is really hard to cover those guys.”

The Badgers hope some of the growing pains that come with playing a younger secondary yield results against a challenging 2024 schedule, and the staff spent a lot of resources in the days leading up to the bowl sifting through the plethora of linebackers in the transfer portal. The result was signing a pair of inside linebackers and a duo at outside linebacker to add a spark to the pressure. From his time in the Big Ten, Tressel said his inside linebackers need to be physical and athletic to guard against the speed and space about half the league uses and the smash-mouth football employed by the others in the conference.

During bowl preparation, Wisconsin brought signed outside linebacker transfers Leon Lowery (Syracuse) and John Pius (William & Mary) to Tampa to go through practices.

“We hope it’s going to be real exciting moving forward, but I’m also excited about how they’ve been coached up on fundamental football,” Tressel said of the OLBs. “They are out there using their hands and doing some of those things well, too. You don’t know when you’re getting somebody from another program how they’ve been coached.”

On offense, Longo spoke glowingly about the impact quarterback Tanner Mordecai brought to the program. The problem was Mordecai was part of a steady string of injuries that started in fall camp that derailed Longo’s Air-Raid offense before it even got off the ground.

“You have a picture of what you think it could be, what you know it can be, what you’ve done with it before,” Longo said. “The trick is when you get somewhere, you got to milk that with the talent you have. You got to let the talent dictate the direction you take the offense.”

Without UW’s top two tailbacks, its starting center, and several receivers, UW saw established players like Will Pauling (8 for 143 yards and two touchdowns) and Bryson Green (7, 105, 1) have career days while young receivers Trech Kekahuna (4 for 64) and Vinny Anthony (3 for 15) show promise.

Longo believes there’s speed in the receivers’ room but must continue to develop it, hoping the explosiveness is coupled with experience.

‘I’ll be excited about taking the next bit step,” Longo said. “Usually in year two, it’s pretty good because you have so many people returning now that understand what we’re doing.”

After taking the reins of the program, Fickell preached “finish” all last offseason to get Wisconsin where it needed to be. He resisted using a phrase Monday, calling a lot of statements “hot air” because the Badgers are what they put on film.

The tape wasn’t pretty in 2023, giving Fickell and his staff a long list of things to work on in what promises to be a long offseason before next fall.

“The word is roller coaster,” Fickell said. “And I’m not saying a lot of seasons aren’t that way but you talk about the ups and the downs, the twists and the turns I think make it the most difficult. This has probably been the most difficult stretch of three months I’ve had in coaching … You forget year one how much you have to go through.

“It makes you find out a lot about yourself and what you have around you.”

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