Wisconsin Football 2025

[wildcat83]

The defense showed signs of promise for sure, but the win was a perfect combo of bad weather and playing maybe the only Big 10 team that we can just physically dominate in the trenches.  Washington just not built as a physical grind it out football team.  Their roster construction still has a lot of Pac 12 vibes to it.  I don't see any path to a functional offense with the roster we currently have.

[Vgmastr]

 

[yourout]

56 minutes ago, Vgmastr said:

 

That's a future trivia question if I ever saw one.

[yourout]

6 hours ago, yourout said:

I'm guessing he gets most of the work from here on out. 

It looks like the end of the year for O’Neil.

 

I meant more for backup reasons but that looked like a season ending Achilles to me.

[LouisEly]

3 hours ago, wildcat83 said:

The defense showed signs of promise for sure, but the win was a perfect combo of bad weather and playing maybe the only Big 10 team that we can just physically dominate in the trenches.

WADR, I don't want to hear about the weather or their personnel.  There wasn't any precipitation until late in the 2nd quarter and Wisconsin was without their:

• Starting QB and their #2 QB went down early
• Starting and #3 RB and their #2 RB was healthy enough to only get 3 carries
• Starting LT, backup LT (B. Nelson), 3rd string LT (L. Nelson)
• Starting OC
• Starting RG/backup OC (Kodanko)
• Starting TE
• Starting ILB (Alliegro)
• Starting safety

Wisconsin earned that win.

[wildcat83]

7 hours ago, LouisEly said:

WADR, I don't want to hear about the weather or their personnel.  There wasn't any precipitation until late in the 2nd quarter and Wisconsin was without their:

• Starting QB and their #2 QB went down early
• Starting and #3 RB and their #2 RB was healthy enough to only get 3 carries
• Starting LT, backup LT (B. Nelson), 3rd string LT (L. Nelson)
• Starting OC
• Starting RG/backup OC (Kodanko)
• Starting TE
• Starting ILB (Alliegro)
• Starting safety

Wisconsin earned that win.

I'm not saying they didn't earn that win, I'm saying that win doesn't give me anymore hope for the rest of the season than what I had prior.  

[Jim French Stepstool]

11 hours ago, yourout said:

That's a future trivia question if I ever saw one.

Here's another good one. There were two TDs in the game. One was a 7 YD drive; the other 1 YD.

[Outlander]

8 hours ago, wildcat83 said:

I'm not saying they didn't earn that win, I'm saying that win doesn't give me anymore hope for the rest of the season than what I had prior.  

I would agree with this but at halftime I couldn't really forsee any scenario how the Badgers could win that game even down only 7. Ultimately the answer was force two turnovers, one creating a goaline situation for the offense, and don't have any turnovers of their own. Have little to no faith in their offense so defense will have to have near perfect games and create turnovers.

[CheezWizHed]

On 11/9/2025 at 6:39 AM, yourout said:

I'm guessing he gets most of the work from here on out. 

It looks like the end of the year for O’Neil.

 

Nah... I think Sean West has a leg up on Smith!

[Playing Catch]

For LouisEly and anyone else that is comparatively patient with Mac/Fickell...

Do you feel confident that say, a Fickell-led Wisconsin program in 2027 is solidly back to the middle-of-the-pack in the B1G?

Or are you just feeling like the injuries have, unfortunately, been so much worse than other middle-of-the-pack B1G teams, that the worst "grade" one could give Fickell is an incomplete, and that doing a program re-boot before 2026 doesn't do anyone any favors?

[JosephC]

1 hour ago, Playing Catch said:

For LouisEly and anyone else that is comparatively patient with Mac/Fickell...

Do you feel confident that say, a Fickell-led Wisconsin program in 2027 is solidly back to the middle-of-the-pack in the B1G?

Or are you just feeling like the injuries have, unfortunately, been so much worse than other middle-of-the-pack B1G teams, that the worst "grade" one could give Fickell is an incomplete, and that doing a program re-boot before 2026 doesn't do anyone any favors?

I'd like some clarification on what you mean by "middle-of-the-pack?"

Lots of people look at Wisconsin/Iowa as not being in the top tier of the Big 10 along with Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State.  So are they middle-of-the-pack, or are they still in a tier above middle-of-the-pack?

For example, in the last 4 full Chryst season (2018-2021), the Badgers had a Big 10 record of 21-12.  From 2022-2025, Iowa has a very similar 22-12 record in the Big 10.  Then let's look at Illinois, from 2022-2025 their record in the Big 10 is 17-16.  From 2022-2025, Minnesota has the same 17-16 record.

So my question is, is the 2027 expectation for Fickell at the level that Wisconsin and Iowa has established over the last couple decades (or "had established" in the case of Wisconsin)...or are we just hoping Fickell can get to Minnesota's level by 2027?

[JosephC]

Back to reality.  ESPN has an article up regarding Mike Locksley's (Maryland) job security (or lack of).

I remember saying back in September that we really don't know how good Maryland is or isn't.  They beat the Badgers, but Locksley has always been able to recruit, so perhaps this would be the break-through year for them.

Since beating Wisconsin, Maryland has gone...Washington = loss, Nebraska = loss, UCLA = loss, Indiana = loss, Rutgers = loss.  They've lost every game since the Wisconsin game.

The further we get away from the Washington win, the more and more unbelievable it seems.

Between Wisconsin, Maryland, Purdue (probably the worst of all), Michigan State and Penn State, the Big 10 seems to have a record number of crappy teams.  Sure, with expansion that number was going to go up...but having 5 of them seems to be a real high number.

Indiana is currently a 29 point favorite.  They had the nail-biter last week against Penn State, but the two games prior to that were a 45 point win against Maryland and a 50 point win against UCLA.  At home, their closest game was against Old Dominion, which they won 27-14.  Against Big 10 competition, their smallest margin of victory in a home game this year has been 25.

[tmwiese55]

I would expect IU to cover that spread and likely very easily, assuming normal weather. 

A note on MD as I looked a little closer when word got out that he was fired. I was of the opinion that they should stuck with him, especially this year with all the other jobs open so looked a bit closer. MD is not some traditional power and he's had them generally competitive and making bowl games. He's made and won bowl games the last 3 years, went 4-5 in B1G the last two years.   

Of course, that's nothing special, but considering this is MD it is pretty good. They'd made 3 bowls in the previous 10ish years total and hadn't won above 7 games since 2010.  And yea this year was gonna be worse, though still a chance at bowl but was hurt by Rut loss last week.  You pointed their losses since playing us but it left out the context of only lost by 4 to WAS, 3 to Neb, 3 to UCLA. Rut was 15 pts but were down one TD with like 5 mins left.  A few plays here or there and they have a fine record for MD and have been competitive/in every game other than IU (which almost no one is).   IMO, you're MD and the guy has been doing fine just giving him another year or maybe ask him to change his contract to move some of his pay to NIL money to help next year.  

Side note: before typing this I thought he did get fired 2-3 weeks ago but turns out they must not have followed through yet.  Maybe saves money o do it later or they went through the same logic I said here and are holding off.

[homer]

Badgers 5, IU 3

 

Book it.

[JosephC]

18 minutes ago, homer said:

Badgers 5, IU 3

 

Book it.

LOL, I think you missed a digit on the IU side.  Putting a 4 in front of IU's 3 seems like a pretty good prediction to me.

[adambr2]

College kickers are tough to watch after watching pro kickers on Sunday.

[JosephC]

There goes 3 of Wisconsin's 5 points.  New predication = Indiana 43, Wisconsin 2.

[RedStickBrew]

I liked the play calling on that first drive. Would have been nice to put some points on the board though

[adambr2]

Imagine watching this game 8 years ago and being told that in 2025, Wisconsin would go into Indiana as a 28.5 point underdog.

[adambr2]

8 minutes ago, RedStickBrew said:

I liked the play calling on that first drive. Would have been nice to put some points on the board though

They kind of needed to, to keep this even momentarily interesting.

[RedStickBrew]

Just now, adambr2 said:

They kind of needed to, to keep this even momentarily interesting.

Need to force them to kick field goals too. They keep hanging 7 on us like that it will be over pretty quick

[adambr2]

Yeah this one is going to get ugly in a hurry.

[homer]

43 minutes ago, homer said:

Badgers 5, IU 3

 

Book it.

[RedStickBrew]

Posa made another great open field tackle on that third down. What a talent. 
 

I expect Indiana will take advantage of his aggressiveness at some point though

[adambr2]

What’s with that horrible ball spot? Looks like they got it anyway on 3rd but I thought he had it easily on 2nd.