MADISON — Head coach Luke Fickell met with the media on Monday for his first official press conference of the 2024 season. He spoke on the upcoming season and the matchup between Western Michigan on Friday.

BadgerBlitz.com has compiled the key takeaways.

Fickell opened his presser by calling Week 1 “the longest week of the year.”

“Week 1 in college football is different than any other sport I think out there. Why? Because we have no real preseason game. We have no scrimmage. It's probably the only sport out there, a high level sport, that you don't have some idea, some type of scrimmage, some type of competition with another group, that you can get a little bit of a better idea of where you are and how you do things and how you handle things. This is my 24th year… and I don't know that it's going to change, and it hasn't changed. So you think, ‘Well coach, you ought to be used to this by now.’ But I don't know that you do get used to that. Each and every year, Week 1 is so unique, as we saw even in Week 0 last week, there's a lot of unknowns.”

He was then asked if he would ever use his influence to try and change some of the pre-season preparation rules, to maybe allow for a preseason game.

“I don't know. I think that, obviously, there's a lot of change in college football. There's a lot of change coming in our landscape. So I think that it could bring about some different opportunities. And like I said, It's been 24 years, you think you get used to that, but that's what makes Week 1 so uniquely different. There's nothing in the spring, there's nothing in the fall, and then you get thrown into it. Now they may look at it and say, ‘Well now that there's a 12 team playoff, not that every game doesn't matter, but there's a little bit of a difference.’

"You know, it's even your first few weeks. But I would envision, as we move forward in this landscape, that hopefully we can find a way with something in the spring or something in fall camp to simulate what they do at the next level. But again, it's really hard to spend a whole lot of time and voice a whole lot of opinions on things like that, when we've got a lot of work to do ourselves. So I try to stay off of rules committees. I try to stay off of some of those other committees. Just from the nature of dealing with 120 guys here, that's the most important thing.”

It was reported last week by BadgerExtra that redshirt senior defensive end James Thompson suffered an upper body injury during practice two weeks ago. Fickell provided an update on Thompson’s status.

“No, it doesn't look like James is probably going to make it. I don't know that [he’ll return] for the year. So there's a lot of things that we still have to wait and see. I don't know if it's a four or a five month thing… He had surgery last week… We haven't really talked about it, but it's a big loss, it's tough. A guy in his senior year that has been through so many things and has meant so much to us.

"Obviously over his time here, but even in this offseason, in our ability to continue to grow and do the things we want to do, and really put guys in leadership roles. He's done an unbelievable job and is fired up and ready to go. And the unfortunate thing happens, and now he'll be in a little bit of a different role for us this year. I don't know that we'll have a chance to get him back.”

The 2024 season will be the first with the expanded 12-team playoff pool, after 10 seasons of a four-team format.

“I don't know that you look at it any different. If you go, you're guaranteed to be in it if you put yourself in that four-team selection. But I do think that in the long run, what it's going to do, it's going to make the season, the length of the season, the later games of the year become — I won’t say that they're not important — but more important in the eyes of everybody around college football. And I think that's what will create a greater excitement, even about where college football is right? I mean, sometimes late in the year, they're all looking for, ‘Well, we only have so many matchups this week,’ and there's so many more games that are going to have an impact on what those 12 teams look like. But I think it's a great thing for college football. I think it's a great thing for the programs, because if something does happen early in the year, you're not out of it.

“I think what it does as a whole, it makes college football better. It gives you opportunities to play games like we got in Week 3 (Alabama), where you're not overly worried about, ‘Hey, this is the whole season.’ Because you're playing a Week 3 game against a top-five opponent, and all that puts us on the outside, because if you're not undefeated, then you're not going to have a chance. So I think in the long run, it does a lot more for college football.”

Running back Chez Mellusi fractured his fibula in the Week 4 game against Purdue last season, ending his season. He returned ahead of schedule in spring and has played sparingly throughout offseason camps.

“I mean, injuries are injuries, and how people deal with them is really key and critical. And Chez has had his ups and he's had his downs and he's had his really tough moments. And for us more than anything, obviously we love Chez and we wanted him to have an incredible season. We wanted to have all the things that he expected and expects. The thing about it is building that confidence from coming back from a lot of those injuries. And I can say this: that he's in a much different place from what I've known even from last year. And I mean that because in spring football, we went live with Chez and it wasn't something that we thought we were going to do. I think it started to build his confidence when all of a sudden he was able to go live and get that feel back. And then in fall camp, we went live with him again in there to have the true ability to kind of test [him] and see where [he was] … He's had a great attitude. He's worked his tail off with everything that we've done. But that confidence level of truly carrying the football, truly making plays, truly taking care of it, when you do some of those things we did in fall camp and letting go in live situations, I think it's really kind of helped build his confidence, not just in his leg, but in all things that tend to get taken away when you go through as many tough injuries as he has. So I'm excited to see him play. I'm excited for him to kind of let loose again. And I really do think that his confidence level in himself is in a really good place.”

The lone inexperienced face on the offensive line is redshirt sophomore guard Joe Brunner, the former four star in-state recruit. Fickell provided some thoughts on his improvement dating back to last season.

“Well, it was hard, because last season, Joe didn't get a whole lot of opportunities. He was a guy that you definitely noticed, whether he was a starter or not last year. In my mind, he always had the makeup of what you were looking for as an offensive lineman — in the toughness department, the physicality department, and the way he played the game, and the energy, the emotion he played with. It was just unfortunate that he didn't get a whole lot of opportunities. Not many years could you ever say that your starting five played the entire season without having an injury, until Jack rolled his ankle in the bowl game. But I was impressed. I was impressed that even [during] the difficult times he had to go through when he wasn't getting the opportunity to play, that you still saw the things that you wanted to see from an offensive lineman, in his grit, his toughness. Then obviously, with the opportunity to start in the spring and all the way through fall camp, I think he's a guy that went on the ‘Play Hard’ board. And that's not an easy thing, right? Because at that position in particular, you're going to be on some ISO cams, and we're going to evaluate every single step of what you do on a daily basis. So I think he brings a little something different to the rest of that crew, and I don't mean just the youth behind him, but a little bit of an edge as well.”

One of the bigger surprises of the offseason was cornerback Max Lofy, who missed all of 2023 with an ankle injury. When Kamo'i Latu suffered an injury on the third day of spring camp, Austin Brown moved from slot corner to safety, leaving Lofy to fill in for Brown. Then, Lofy simply stayed there for the remainder of spring and fall.

“It's hard to say exactly where he was before that, because I didn't know. But if I said it in the spring, and if I said it at the start of fall camp from last year, I think I said Nyzier (Fourqurean) was the guy that had made the biggest leap in my mind throughout winter and spring and even into fall camp. Now, I would say Max Lofy, in my mind, has made the biggest leap. Again, because we didn't really know where he was last year, but even as he came back in the start of spring to where he is now. I don't think there's another guy in our program that I have as much respect for because of the way he's handled everything. He wasn't handed anything. There was a time where he probably was on the bubble to be here.

“As you come into a new program, you're trying to evaluate everything. And I was reminded by a guy I coached for for 10 years in Jim Tressel to never evaluate a kid when he's hurt. And usually you talk about it with young kids, but when you come into a program, everybody's young because you don't know them. And where (Lofy) was even in spring ball, to where he is right now is night-and-day different. And he’s another guy that went on the ‘Play Hard’ board [which] is very difficult to do, and especially at a position where sometimes you call them skilled athletes. Not that I don't respect those guys, but sometimes I have a little harder time putting those guys up on the board. But he has done an unbelievable job of winning everybody and taking advantage of every opportunity that he has. And I really expect some big things for him, and I'm excited to watch him play this entire season."

Wisconsin's first matchup of the season comes on Friday against Western Michigan, who have three new coordinators and a variety of new players, leaving questions for the Badgers and their coaching staff.

“I mean, we know as little as we ever have known, right? They have a new offensive coordinator, they have a new defensive coordinator, they have a new special teams coordinator. So what do you know? Obviously, the head coach is an offensive guy. Does he stick with what the head coach has done, or is it more of [offensive coordinator] Walt Bell and are they going to be like Louisiana Lafayette, where the defensive coordinator came from? So there's a lot of unknowns. Even with transfers and things like that, there's still a lot of unknowns. But I think the good thing about that, whether it's game one or even a game where you have a lot of guys returning, meaning you have an idea of what their offense is going to be and what their defense going to be, it allows us to make sure we focus on ourself, and I think that is really key and really critical in college ball in particular, because you don't have those preseason opportunities to challenge yourself. So you really have to be able to focus on yourself, do the things that you do and do them really well. And you get to find out the maturity of a team early on, just because you get to see how you can problem solve in Week One.

“If I would say anything about last year, that's where I think, after Week 1 and 2, I did recognize one of our shortcomings was our ability to problem solve as things changed, as things changed within a game, as things change from the start of a game. Because I felt like last year, we were really good with the things we prepared for, but we were not nearly as good with the things that we hadn't prepared for. So that comes down to what you prepare, but your ability and maturity wise to be able to problem solve. And I think we'll get a great look at that in Week 1.”

“To be honest with you, through fall camp, I would say we were going to go six-deep with the d-line. And I really did believe that that was a group that had made a lot of improvements, I thought, from last year, and our ability to say, ‘Hey, we can go six deep.’ So Brandon Lane will definitely be a guy that you will see. How much time? We'll see. And then Dillan Johnson is, for sure, a true freshman that's going to play. How much? We'll see.”

Fickell alluded to playing the top three guys in the rotation around 40 snaps a game, but didn’t get much more specific with playing time after that.

“There's a lot of other snaps in there that we need, from Hills and Brandon Lane and Dylan Johnson, and we're only going to be as good as deep as we can be in that position. And two weeks ago, we were planning on playing six. Right now, I think we're planning on playing five, and there's still a couple other guys that you would say, ‘Hey, we'll see in those first couple weeks if we need them, you know they're there.’ As well with [Jamel Howard], and maybe even with guys that you know if the situation arises, meaning, if we get into some goal line situations, we're going to need some other big bodies in there, and those are guys that are ready and able to go.”

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