MILWAUKEE -- An appearance by first-year head coach Luke Fickell drew a major crowd in Milwaukee for an alumni event on Thursday night.

As fans made their way into the Italian Community Center, they were greeted by staff behind a table filled with name tags. Among the assortment of motion Ws and other decorations throughout the venue was a sign that read "welcome to a new era of Wisconsin football."

Publicity efforts made in the form of billboards in the Midwest and even in the heart of New York City were aimed to highlight a new offense and major recruiting victories. With the recent results, it's impossible not to feel a new era in Madison.

The success comes after a major transition on the Badgers' coaching roster. Now when you look up and down the staff directory on the Wisconsin web site, just one assistant - Mike Caputo - has a background that includes time as a Badger during his playing days. A far cry from the 15 former athletes who were on the staff this past season.

The connections within the state will have to be formed in a way that hasn't had to be stressed in the past by the program under former head coach Paul Chryst.

"I think the thing we have to overcome is we don’t have a great tie and roots to Wisconsin," Fickell said when speaking to a few local reporters at the event. "All the former players that were on the staff that aren’t with us anymore, I feel bad about that. I think that’s something we have to overcome."

That effort started to take shape in the weeks after Fickell was named head coach. A number of the early hires checked in on commits in the 2023 recruiting class, along with making stops at high schools in the Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay areas.

"We just have to be aggressive," Fickell said. "To me it always comes down to what is the core and the crux of the program? And that’s not going to change. It’s here in Wisconsin, it’s in that 300-mile radius, so to be honest with you, what I’d see is we have Wisconsin and we have to be able to get into Chicago, and that has to be the core and the crux of our program."

That 300-mile radius is a philosophy Fickell brought up during his introductory press conference in late November. It is one he has continued to stress publicly. The Badgers are working to eliminate recent in-state recruiting loses like Billy Schrauth (Notre Dame), Jerry Cross (Penn State) and Carson Hinzman (Ohio State).

"I feel good about that," Fickell said of the philosophy. "I don’t look at the past and maybe a few guys that the last couple of years got out of the state, but that’s on us. We have to make sure we do a better job, we have to make sure we build relationships, we have to make sure we know who those guys are from their freshman and sophomore year and make sure that doesn’t happen, but it takes time."

When asked specifically about the Milwaukee and Southeast Wisconsin area, the same sentiment was brought up by Fickell. He acknowledged a necessity to gain a better grasp of the landscape while understanding the significance of maintaining ties with the programs in the area.

"I don’t know the history. My job is to study and understand that… but I know that there is a great mix here. Not just the big offensive linemen but you’re also going to get some of the athletes as well," Fickell said. "Our presence is critical and they’ve done a phenomenal job here, but the thing we have to continue to do here in my opinion is build those relationships. We’ve got a lot of new guys and one thing that we don’t have that we’ve had here in the past is a lot of former players. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of former players on our staff.

"I wish maybe we did but just the way things work out, but that’s why it’s even more important to be in these schools whether that’s in Milwaukee or in Green Bay or in Madison or wherever. So that these high school coaches or these high school kids recognize that, yes, we might not have played here, but boy do we have the utmost respect for the things that you’ve done and especially how you do them.

"I think it’s even more critical for us and our program because we don’t have quite the history, so our job is to build that history and we will and we’ll do that."

Though Wisconsin elected to move away from someone who understands the culture and history at UW in Jim Leonhard, it is clear that Fickell and the staff are making it a priority to form a relationship with high school coaches and programs in the state. So far in the 2024 and 2025 recruiting classes, the Badgers have extended nine in-state scholarship offers.

"It takes work and the last thing we want to do is show up in Wisconsin at a high school only when they have a player, so our job right now is to get into every school and start to build those relationships and make sure we know those guys and have a relationship with a coach. Those are going to be our greatest advocates as long as you do things the right way," Fickell said.

"It’s going to take some time for us to build those relationships but we’ll be in and out of those schools every single year."

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