MADISON — Head coach Luke Fickell met with the media on Wednesday to discuss National Signing Day, where he offered his thoughts on the 2025 class, his vision for the offense, the changes they need to make on defense and more.

BadgerBlitz.com has compiled the key takeaways.

Fickell was asked about the challenge of recruiting offensive players without having hired a coordinator.

He expanded upon the recruitment of quarterback Carter Smith and spoke of the need for “blind faith,” a term which was brought up repeatedly throughout Wednesday’s press conference.

“I think it does make it more difficult, but I think that if you do things the right way, and you can get people to trust and believe in you, there's a blind faith that's involved in a lot of the things that we're doing. And I'll give Carter and his family a lot of props for that, like, you know, they were able to sit down, they were able to look me in the face, they were able to, you know, make an assessment on do we trust and believe in Him?

“It's pretty easy for people out there to say, ‘Well, why would you want to do that? They're going to go right back to doing what they did before, and now they're going to be in 22 [personnel] again.’ We heard it all in the last three-and-a-half weeks. But, if people believe and trust in you, then they'll have some blind faith in that. And that's what, I think, happened for us, because we had the same situations with all these wide receivers too. As things change, like, Okay, well, help me out here. Like, where's the direction? What do you guys see? What are you doing? And you can't say exactly,” Fickell said.

This allowed reporters to ask about the pending offensive coordinator search.

“I'd like to tell you, ‘Hey, in three days, we're going to be able to do this thing.’ But we have to do our due diligence, and we can't hastily just jump into this. Look, I wanted it done yesterday. I wanted it done a week ago. I wanted to know who it was… But that's just not the case, right?”

In a surprising move, Fickell even offered some details about his vision for the offense and what he’s looking for in a coordinator.

“I would tell you that we want to be more of a pro style. And what does that mean? That doesn't mean anything more than we want to be multiple. We want to be able to play in 11 personnel. We want to be able to play in 12 personnel. We want to be able to play it if we have 13 personnel, if that's possible, 21, we want to be in the gun. We want to be able to do the things that we've done out of the gun in the passing game. But we also want to be able to see ourselves under center for six, eight, 10 snaps a game.”

Fickell made sure to specify that he didn’t want to completely undo the changes they made over the past two years and go back to a strict i-formation, bully-ball style.

“Our ability to be multiple and maybe be a little bit different from what we've seen the last two years, I think, is really important. But we don't want to throw away the things we've done last year. Our ability to be better in the passing game because of what we've done the last two years is really going to be good. Our ability to acquire skill levels over the last two years gives us a greater opportunity to still play with the guys on the field that are our best 11 guys, which I think they are. Even though we're losing some of those guys, we're not losing them because we don't have an offensive coordinator. We're losing them because in some ways, we've got maybe two guys that can be NFL wide receivers out there. But we want to be able to build upon what it is that we've done and what we've done the last two years, and our ability to spread it out and play the passing game, be out of the gun, is going to be, obviously, where we've built from, but our ability to be able to play under center a little bit, get some play action.”

Lastly, he alluded to bringing in a separate quarterback coach rather than just make the offensive coordinator work double duty, which was the situation for Phil Longo when he was here.

“That's the vision of us going forward. Who is it just yet? I don't know, but there's an opportunity for us to put it together the right way and even create some different things… And I would tell you too, I guess maybe just since we're on it, there's a possibility of not just hiring an offensive coordinator, but also hiring a quarterback coach as well,” Fickell said.

Two of the class’s 10 four-star recruits both come from the Chicago area — cornerback Jahmare Washington and outside linebacker Jaylen Williams.

Fickell was asked about this specific area, but discussed the general importance of recruiting within a closer proximity to Madison.

“Well, we got to do our best job there… it's really important to us, whether it's the state of Wisconsin, whether it's a 200 mile radius, whether it's Chicago, I think there's really good football. And the thing about those guys, we know the most about them. And what I mean by that is we've got relationships with the guys between the high school, the people in the high schools. You know more about those guys than we do about a guy [like] Logan Powell from Arizona, right?

"I mean, you can see the tape, you can watch the tape, but you don't know a ton of people in their high school to maybe get some of the ins and outs. And so it's really important for us to make sure the core and the nucleus or crux of the recruiting can be from that area where we know those guys the most. Because in order to be where we want to be, we're going to have to retain enough guys that give us a chance to develop. And everybody wants things now,” Fickell said.

Fickell discussed how knowing more about and having greater connections to certain players can create faith in their long-term development, even if they’re not entering as the most heralded recruits. He cited past Badger legends like J.J. Watt and T.J. Watt, who entered without much hype but went on to become some of the best players in program history.

“But a lot of the guys that have been really successful have been developmental guys, and so we gotta make sure, in those areas, we still say, ‘Hey, we got to evaluate those guys the most. We've got to be able to bring them, and we've got to be able to develop them.’ That means we've got to retain them, because a lot of these guys, after a year, year-and-a-half, if they can't clearly see themselves playing right away. The trend right now is to go.

"So you've got to hope and believe that those guys are the ones that are going to be maybe more developmental for us. And that's what I'm going to say to the high school in this area, this Midwest, where we don't have some spring balls and things, we're going to have to put a greater emphasis on football, whether it's in the off seasons or not, because our kids in these northern or in these midwestern [states] are going to lose out on more opportunities, because everybody wants guys that are more developed, and we're seeing a trend that it's harder to keep guys in a developmental role that all of a sudden, in year three or year four, they're a completely different player,” Fickell said.

After linebacker Leon Lowery and defensive linemen Curt Neal announced their intentions to enter the transfer portal, they told the Athletic that certain foretold defensive changes for next season contributed to their decisions.

Fickell was asked about these supposed changes, and spoke rather honestly about his intentions with the defense.

“I think one of the things we have to address in recruiting, we have to address in the transfer portal, is we have to get bigger, and we have to get bigger up front of the defensive line. That is going to be an incredible emphasis. Jalen [Williams] is one of those guys that we think can help us do that. And it doesn't mean that just because you're bigger, that means you're better. Because you're bigger, you're stronger.

"That guy into the boundary in some ways, he's got a big guy to put his hand on the ground a little bit more and be more physical. And I think we've got some guys that are already in the program, but we have to add guys like that. Maybe when they walk in, sometimes guys with length like that don't have quite the same power until they get to the weight room. But guys understand leverage and can use it. He's a guy that I think can, can give us a difference and be a difference maker, right away.”

When reflecting on the season’s second half fall-off, Fickell partially attributed that decline to sheer size.

“When it comes down to it, you start to say, ‘Well, hey guys, you were five and two, and obviously you didn't do well in the last five games. You [lost] five straight.’ I mean, we're trying not to talk about it, but it is us. We gotta own it. We got to pinpoint and try to say why. We can say we got wore down, we got beat up, we got hurt. Some of that comes down to, hey, you're going to have to get bigger, you know, you're going to have to get bigger. You're going to have to be able to withstand in this league, but also in this newfound league, to be able to play 12 games, nine league games.

The 2025 class is the first Wisconsin class to have two scholarship quarterbacks since the 2017 class, which included Jack Coan and Danny Vanden Boom.

Fickell was asked about the struggle of recruiting two quarterbacks in the same class, and if he had to have any extra discussion with Landyn Locke after the late signing of Carter Smith.

“Obviously, things come out on social media well before sometimes they’re even legitimate. And that was the case even with Carter. And as soon as it became a little bit more public, and we kind of put in our ideas that we needed to go and maybe recruit him, I reached out to Landyn and tried to make sure that they were all on the same page, and they understood what it is that we were doing. And it's not always the easiest thing in the world, because that wasn't the plan before, but plans have to and do change.

“To me, as long as you're upfront, as long as you're honest with people, if your relationship's built the right way, it usually works itself out. And to be honest, I thought that they handled it really well. They understood what it is that we had to do and what we were going to try to do, and all anybody wants is to make sure that they still have the opportunity to compete, they still have the same opportunities that and still believe in them the same way that we did, whether it was a year ago or six months or a month ago, we started recruiting another quarterback. It wasn't because Landyn was hurt or it wasn't because we didn't believe in him. It was just the sheer fact that, like I told him, we need to have five guys in that room, and we can't get into a situation like we have been this year,” Fickell said.

Fickell first spoke of the idea of “blind faith” when it came to recruiting offensive players without a chosen coordinator, but he also acknowledged the hurdle of recruiting during a losing streak.

“I'd be remiss if I didn't say the last three weeks, just knowing how we've played and not being able to win, and not being able to get ourselves in a position where you know you finish well, it's been something that's bothering me. And to see guys like Mason Posa not waver. Yes, he thinks and understands and knows that he can come in and help make an impact, whether that's on the field or as a part of the culture, and that faith and belief that you know that the games and what you see on Saturday isn't everything, and it's not final either, for those guys to hold with us and to believe in us. I mean, it happens, right?

"He's, in particular, one that I know that the last few weeks, I was concerned. But obviously relationships and trust and belief, you know, and in this process still won out. Everybody thinks it's just about money, and not saying it doesn't have a factor in it, but it makes me feel really good about saying, ‘Okay, there is a part of relationship, there's a part of trust that that still wins out in this process’, which tells you it's still going to win out within the process of building and growing your program.”

When discussing the two quarterbacks they welcomed via the 2025 class, Fickell began to speak of the importance of having five capable quarterbacks in the room at all times. This opened the door for reporters to ask about the status and future of fifth-year quarterback Tyler Van Dyke, who only started three games before suffering a season-ending ACL tear.

“We just don't know, right? I mean, from what he told me, he wants to continue to play college football. It is a tough situation for him and for all of us, because there's just so many unknowns with his injury and how long of a recovery his injury is, but I do think that not knowing exactly where we are right now makes it pretty big.

“I love Tyler. Tyler has done nothing but be dedicated to what we've asked him to do. He's been at every game. He's been at every practice. And that does mean something, we're going to have to figure out where the progress is and what the prognosis looks like for him, because it is a position in a situation where we can't end up where we were this year. And I don't mean like, ‘Okay, we have better quarterbacks.’ I mean, it can't be in a position where you really only have two guys and one guy that's coming off of two ACL surgeries,” Fickell said.

Of the 24 players they welcomed in the 2025 class, 16 will graduate early and enroll at Wisconsin in January, allowing those players to participate in spring camp.

“You start to get to summer and you get to fall, it's about preparing yourself to win football games. So the ability, in the winter, to get into lifting in the weight room, and then, really, you do a lot more football in the winter now, with your opportunities to teach and do walk-throughs.

“I think, as you get into the spring, you're going to have a good idea who maybe some of those positions are, if they played a lot of ball. And it's going to be about getting these other guys many more opportunities competing, so that as you get to the summer and fall camp, you get a little bit better idea of who you need to really get those reps to look at with this class,” Fickell said.

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