Everything Luke Fickell said ahead of Week 2

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The Wisconsin Badgers are heading into Week 2 after their 41-13 loss to the No. 4 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, where they struggled in the second half en route to a blowout loss.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday, head coach Luke Fickell expressed his disappointment with the loss, while looking forward to the upcoming week.

Opening Statement

Just start off, probably recap. I think first and foremost, it’s a disappointment the way things finished for us. But I do think we found a lot of interesting things out about ourselves. I think the thing that we neglected to mention a whole hell of a lot was we maybe had 15 to 17 new starters that played a really big ballgame last week. And so I was really emphasizing the first 6 to 8 minutes, our ability to have poise and handle the situation. And I thought they did a really, really good job in that, in that case. And so there were some really good things for us, the way we played in particular in the first half, but the way we competed.

Obviously, the second half was not the way we want to go about our business. And some things showed that we got to find a way to correct. And it’s not one thing in particular. It’s not a breakdown in coverage or something offensive. It’s really, to be honest with you, it’s kind of a wear down a little bit of us. And so I give them the credit today. It’s a really good football team that in the second half, obviously picked it up. And I think for us mentally and emotionally, and I won’t say as much physically, but it happens to be physically in condition. But I think that there’s a mental side of things, as many new guys as we had. The second half took a toll on us. And in some way, somehow, we made some mistakes that were really, really difficult to overcome, especially against a great football team. But all in all, in that second half, I think we just wore down a bit too much that the physicality showed up a little bit. And not that we’re not a lack of a physical football team. I mean, that’s what we emphasize and stress as much as anything. But I think some of the— I don’t say the youth, but the newness of our ability to do that for 60 minutes of what we did in the first half showed up. in the second half of the game in particular.

But there’s a lot of really good things that we’re going to grow from. I kind of said it after the game. I’ve said it to our team that this is where the season starts and not in particular because we weren’t focused on the first game. But in the first shot of adversity, what are you going to do? How are you going to respond? Are you going to continue to grow? And so the most important thing for us is to get back to business, focus on ourselves. It’s a short week, which in some ways can be a really good thing. Because you got to get right back at it really, really quick. And so that’s what we did today. Today was a Tuesday practice. But with the physicality of the game that we had the other night, it wasn’t like we could do a normal Tuesday. So we kind of had to lighten up with the physicality of some things and get ourselves back into the swing. But it’s a great week for us to make sure we get back to the basics, fundamentally do what we need to do, because that’s what showed up in the second half that we didn’t do a good enough job of. 

On Emerson Mandell return in Week 2, Stylz Blackmon/Blake Cherry in Week 1…

Yeah, I would hope so. I mean, I think that we’ll see what Emerson has. We’ll maybe see if we can get him in some this week. If he’s not, then next week. We’re hoping and believing that he’s getting closer to that, but it was very promising when those 2 guys rolled in there. I think Blake ended up with a few more snaps than Stylz, but that was just based on the drives that they were in. But I thought it was a good plan.

I think that they switched every series for the most part, which gave those 2 guys a lot of opportunities out there. But I’ll give you that Stylz went out there for another guy that we’re talking about that is one of those 16, 17 new starters that I don’t say he’s ever played in a game of that magnitude in that venue. And it wasn’t too big for him. And so I think that’s a really promising thing for us as we continue to grow. 

On Malachi Coleman, what they expected coming from the portal…

Well, we had a little bit of history of watching him play our first year against him. So I think that’s probably when he played as much as anything his first year, I think, at Nebraska. What happened in between there, I don’t know. I think the best thing for us is you’re taking a lot of educated guesses, in particular in the portal stuff, which is why it’s so difficult to think you’re going to build really around taking guys out of the portal. There’s things that you can enhance and what we want to do as a program. But to think you’re going to build from the portal, I think it’s tough.

But I think with having Jayden Everett here who had been with him, who gave us a greater insight of who he is and what he has the ability to do, we felt comfortable about taking that chance. And, you know, I love Malachi. I don’t know if I’ve said it enough, he missed a bunch of fall camp. He missed a part of spring football for different reasons, injuries and different things like that. But he’s never missed a day. And I mean that in a way that he’s been out there every single day with an attitude, with an effort level, with an energy, whether he’s been practicing, where there’s not been practicing, that he’s been felt. And so it was great to see him go out there and have an opportunity to make some plays, which he did, and continue to grow. And so far so good.

It’s been one of those things that, you know, you never know exactly what you’re going to get. But when someone’s been with a guy like we talked about through the portal stuff, like I’d say 80-some percent of the guys, 85% of the guys that we took in the portal, there was some type of relationship that we had had before this portal kind of thing started. And so I like where he is and I like where he has a chance to grow to.

On Malachi Coleman’s route running…

You’re asking the wrong person. You remember I’m a defensive lineman, right? For me to go out there, it’s like you’re going to ask me fundamentally about the quarterbacks and things. I don’t want to use different references, but I don’t have a great technical skill set of saying exactly what he does as far as route running and things like that. I know this. He works at everything he does. There’s nobody that I don’t think has more of a passion for what he’s doing. There’s somebody that’s starting to create a routine. I don’t know what he’s been before. I don’t know where his hiccups have come and why.

But I can tell you this, that he’s building a routine for what he does here. There’s a guy that was in there, again, this is a Tuesday. So he was in there Tuesday morning on the jug machine at about 6:30 in the morning because that’s a routine. And whether he had a good game, he had a bad game, whether he played or he didn’t play, I would expect it to continue for him to continue to do those things. And if that helps him in his route running progressions and his footwork, that’s awesome. As long as for me is he keeps the same attitude and the energy that he’s had from the start, I know good things will happen.

On tackling issues in 2nd half…

Yeah, I think it shows up a hell of a lot more obviously in the secondary, the back end of the defense, the back 7. I think you don’t notice it as much in the front end because like we all know, when an interior guy or a defensive lineman misses a tackle, sometimes it’s a 2 or 3-yard gain. And as you get further back, when they miss tackles, they become a lot more obvious. But that’s a part of what I was saying about being wore down a little bit. I think there’s a mental and emotional drain in a game like that.When I say where’s the separation, the separation might be as much as their ability to handle the second half emotionally and mentally because a lot of their guys had probably played a lot of ball and they did a better job in the second half of that. And that’s where we, I think, probably showed up some of our things.

We missed some tackles in particular, I think with our linebacker position, 2 guys that played really a lot of ball for us last year and I should say a lot the last 5 or 6 games, but still have never been put in probably a true situation like that with as much on them that I think the second half took a toll on us. But the great thing is it is game 1. And the great thing is that we do have guys that we believe have what it takes to be great, not just as individuals, but as a team. And so there’s no better way to get better is recognizing it’s not your training over the summer. It’s not that you need to run more in in practice or we need to do a different training in fall camp. It’s more can you handle the things emotionally and mentally that when it comes to the second half, when it comes to the late in the third and fourth quarter, are you at your best? And it’s not physically. It usually has a lot more to do with mentally and emotionally. Can you handle all that, all that’s on our plates?

On Kevin Heywood’s start…

And there’s another guy, like you said, that we have high expectations. And, you know, we’ve made a big deal out of, is he going to be out there to play? For a guy that had never started a game or really even played, that was a lot. And that’s one of the reasons why I was a little bit more hesitant. Kevin was never hesitant. When something happened to him the second day of fall camp, he said, there’s no doubt I’m going to be there for the first game. He actually tried to get back into practice himself at that time.

But then once we got a little bit more of a diagnosis, he said there was no doubt he was going to be out there. But for me, for us, I was probably thinking on the other side that he wouldn’t play, just trying to be smart and recognizing that the journey that we have to go on and putting him in that situation is the very first time he’s really ever played in college in a game in that kind of a venue. I thought he went out and played really well.

I mean, there’s some things he’s got to do better. I think maybe snap one might be one play that I think he would like to and maybe we would like to have a little bit back on some little things. Maybe I think that he maybe didn’t do exactly the way we would expect it. But all in all, he’s got to continue to grow. He’s got to stay healthy. But I think that he’s in a really good place and he brings a lot to us. And it’s not just what he does on the football field. I think there’s a confidence level that really helps in that room too for a guy that hasn’t played a whole lot.

Importance of being dominant in non-conference games…

Being dominant in every game is going to be important. I think the most important thing is that you really kind of focus on who you need to be and who you want to be. And so an emphasis for us is to say, look, what we wanted to be going out last week in the game against Notre Dame in the first game of the year and in the magnitude of what it was is the same thing we want to be when we go out here this week. And I mean that in a way that like, look, you don’t try to change up just because you think you should be dominant, right? You’re never once going to hear me say, hey, we should score X amount of points and they shouldn’t get 20 yards.

No, the idea is, guys, who are we? What do we want to be? And week in and week out, the best teams in the country, that’s what they do. And I really do believe that. I’m not going to point fingers at anybody, but there are some ones that have consistently been really good around the country. If you just study football and the great things that they do is they do what they do no matter who it is that they play. That is a little bit more difficult than just who would say. It’s easy to say, but it’s not just the players either. It has a lot to do with the coaching staff as well. And so we’ve got to make sure that we’re building an identity of all that we have to do and it has to show each and every week. And however that’s going to unfold in a game in particular Saturday night, it’s going to unfold. But we got to continue to battle at what it is that we need to do and what we need to be. And that’s got to be shown on Saturday night.

On if timeouts due to not getting set on offense is something to address..

You’d have to give me the for-sures on— we called one in the second half when Colton got hit because we wanted to make sure he was okay, which obviously maybe the officials should do. There are some closer ones. I think that there’s always the mechanics of things in game 1 that we have to be able to get better at. But there was maybe one time, but I think it was a little bit more of, I don’t know that we love the look either, and then we were making a check into. And so we were going to do that.

But that’s always after game 1. There’s always things we got to do a better job of mechanics, getting in and out of the huddle. I could tell you that I would love for them to be out of the huddle with 24 seconds on the clock. And I would say maybe on an average we were out of the huddle with 17 seconds on the clock. Maybe 24 is a little bit too much. But I think just to be able to put the quarterback in a position where he can do all he needs to do and evaluate all he needs to evaluate. I think we can get a little bit better at that.

On how to deal with mental wear during season…

You got to play a lot of games. You got to play. And I think that, you try to tell me that Mason Posa isn’t physically able to go for 60 minutes or 67 plays or whatever it was, and Cooper Catalano and some of those guys. I mean, D-linemen by nature roll, but there’s a mental and there’s an emotional drain that you do see. And it has nothing to do sometimes with your training. It just has more to do with your ability to stay poised and calm, even handling a halftime.

How are you tired when you come out after halftime? Like, that’s not the case. It just becomes one of those things that become a little bit more emotional and mental, especially when something happens. And they began to move the ball a little bit on us, a little more on us in the second half, in particular in that first drive. And that’s when things showed up. And you could just notice maybe a pressing of a little bit more where, a guy like J-Rob (Javan Robinson) who’s played a lot of football. When it got a little bit tighter, when it got a longer drive, you could see him that he goes back to his fundamentals. And that’s one of the things that we emphasize, that the guys have played a lot of ball, the guys that have a calmness and a patience, a poise to them. When it gets a little bit tighter, they can revert back to, hey, it’s about the little things, it’s about the fundamentals.

Where the nature of us emotionally driven people, myself as well, that when things start to happen, the emotions sometimes take over and that becomes a little bit more of a mental and emotional drain. And so it has nothing more than we just got to continue to play more. We got to be put in those situations. We got to challenge ourselves more and then we got to recognize it because it’s one thing to be able to say it. It’s another thing to recognizing it and finding a way that which each and every person has to be able to handle that. And so it’s different for each guy, but it’s something that like in that first time you’re playing, like we said, with a lot of guys that you hadn’t seen play. Abu Sama’s played a lot of ball and Colton’s played a lot of ball. I’ve never looked him in the eyes and noticed how they are in some of those situations. And so I think we know our guys a little bit better. We can communicate with them a little bit better and hopefully help them along the way as they learn how to have that greater poise.

On injury concerns with QB runs…

Yeah, it’s all a part of being who we need to be too. We can’t play this game scared. And I think we said that in maybe the preseason a little bit. It’s one of those things that become very difficult. I mean, all through fall camp, Kevin (Heywood) hurts his foot on the second day of fall camp. We have a couple of guys get dinged up in fall camp. But there’s times to adjust and adapt, but you can’t play scared.

And so I think there becomes part of these things that we got to understand and recognize, we got to put guys in situations where they can handle them. So if it’s not a situation where the guy can handle, meaning knows when he can be aggressive and when can he slide, you got to be a little bit more cautious. But no matter what, we got to continue to play. We can’t worry about all the other little things that can happen because if they do happen, you got to trust and believe in the people that are behind them.

And I think for us at the quarterback room, I think that’s the one of the better things we’ve got going for us is that, if by chance Colton went down right there and was out for a play or two, I don’t feel like we’re going to have to change up a whole lot. Some new experience, but not a play that we can continue to talk about, to worry too much about.

On what he can take away from previous teams in non-conference…

If there’s one thing about the last 4 years is when you have so many new guys, I think for myself, yeah, there’s some follow-ups. But like, I don’t know that a lot of those things today have a big bearing on things. I mean, like, these guys, a lot new, and we understand what the emphasis was when we started the camp. But I don’t know that there’s something we can take from something that happened last year or something that happened the year before.

Our preparation was about, hey, how do we handle adversity? Not expecting that adversity was going to happen in the first game or a loss was going to happen in the first game, but that you’re always prepared to say, hey, how do we move forward? And so, no, I think the most important thing is that we have a chance to recover. We have a chance to move forward. We have a chance to go out there and play again. And there’s things we can learn from. Do you learn from losses? Yeah, you do. But as a big picture of learning from some things from last year, I don’t know that that’s going to have a great effect on, on a bunch of guys on this team.

On Sebastian Cheeks growth, impact…

Sebastian has definitely grown. He’s a guy obviously that you saw that went out there for the coin toss, is one of the guys in our captain group that has come a long way. And I don’t just mean in his play. I just meant in his ability to lead and be an example for us and everybody on this team. So he had a good game. I think that even him as a guy that played a lot for us last year, but I don’t know if he’s ever been put in a position in this game, in college, where he has as much on his plate. meaning as many guys are looking to him and at him not just for his play, but for his leadership.

And so he’s another guy that again, you’d expect a lot of things out of, but you do see the toll that it even took on him for the second half. So I think it’s a great growing experience for all of us, whether you’re a guy like Sebastian Cheeks, who’s in his last year, to a guy like Cooper and Posa, who just in their second season ever to a guy like Jai’mier Scott, who, it’s his first ever time playing out there. Like, there’s a growth to this stuff that we can’t forget about. They’re still young men and we’re still growing them into grown men. And a part of that is how they grow up on the field, too.

On walk-ons contributing, their value…

Yeah, I still think it’s a huge part of our program. There’s a lot of these guys that are developmental, and that’s how a lot of times walk-ons start off, right? They just didn’t have the hype. They didn’t have the development out of high school, and they become walk-ons. Those guys that stick around in the program for a few years, you know can contribute and can contribute in many different ways. That’s not going to change.

The hardest thing nowadays is to be able to keep them, and whether they get antsy and want to go someplace else and play or they feel like you bring in an older guy now and now they don’t have an opportunity in their second or in their third year. But those guys are valuable to us, not just in the way we prepare, but in playing too. And yeah, it was a tough one. Obviously, Harry (Bortolotti) turned the ball over but he did go out there on the next kickoff and make a pretty good play on that as well. So we all got to be able to move on and handle some things and we got to be able to grow from them. But there’s a good group of those guys that down the stretch here as we go through this journey are going to be a big part of what it is that we’re doing.

On Bryce West’s debut…

Yeah, I think he played pretty confidently. I think he played pretty aggressively. And there’s another guy that comes in with great expectations from us, but probably played more right there in that game than he has in all of his college career. And so I think that where he was the other night and where he’ll be as we move forward next week and the week after, they’re going to see a great improvement as well because he’s a ballplayer that has a desire and a passion to be great. And so even he recognized some of the things that in particular, maybe even the second half, that he needs to do a better job of.

But I think as a whole, the back end of the defense, I thought we did a good job. I think we did limit obviously some shots down the field and some things like that. There’s some places we need to be able to grow. We need to be able to get a little bit better. And I don’t know that the tackling showed up as much. There were a few, I think, in the back end but it really was a little bit more glaring internally with some of the second-level guys. But I think we did play a good number of guys back there. So it wasn’t like there was only 4 or 5 guys that played.

I think Cairo (Skanes) played in the back end of some things. We rolled in the field corner with J-Scott and (Eric) Fletcher. Cai Bates didn’t play as much, but will play a little bit more in some some ability to roll into maybe the boundary some. But it’s a good sign for us to say that you played a good 7 or so, 8 guys on that in the back end of things and nobody stood out like they didn’t belong.

On strong 1st half defense on 3rd downs and what happened after…

We didn’t get to any 3rd and 2 pluses in the second half, which other than the last one, we got a PI. So that’s where we lost it on first and second down where the 3rd downs in the second half, I don’t know if they were 4 for 6, I don’t know what it was in the second. They were 0 for 6 in the first half. We did a really good job on 3rd down, but a majority of those ones were a little bit longer yardage. 5, 6 plus. And I think that can be a strength of ours is our ability to get after the quarterback, mix some things up, whether it’s pressure and just bring them 4 and still feel like you can get pressure.

We just didn’t get ourselves in the situation in the second half where we could do that. And so it’s not the third down defense as much as it was the first and second down defense. But in the first half, it was really good. Those guys did a really good job. Sebastian Cheeks applied some pressure, but that’s where the back end of things showed up pretty good too. So we’ve got to find ways. Again, if you have a lot of 3rd and longs or medium pluses, you should be really good on 3rd down. If you’ve got a lot of 3rd and shorts, it’s not usually a great day. But you forget that really comes down to 1st and 2nd down to put yourself in those positions. So hopefully we’ll have a hell of a lot more of them.

On health of Eugene Hilton, PJ Wilkins, others…

No, don’t know. Today wasn’t as physical of a day, so I don’t know that we could tell a whole lot from where guys are. We have some guys that are banged up. There’s no doubt. There’s some guys that we’ll see how the week goes. I mean, it’s a physical football game like this. I don’t care what anybody says. We didn’t have success because we didn’t run the ball well enough, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a physical football game.

They rushed for 20-some yards in the first half and 80-some in the second half and had 111 rushing yards. That’s not a ton. It was a physical, physical football game in all areas. And so we do have some guys that are a little bit beat up, haven’t played a lot of ball. And so how they will handle this and moving forward and recover is going to be a big deal for us. That we’ll have to see throughout this week.

On how team will handle adversity...

There’s a hell of a lot of maturity and discipline involved in handling adversity. And so there’s a couple of different ways to come back in. It’s a short week. There’s a couple of different ways you can tell and see in guys faces and just how they approach everything that they’re doing. YEerybody else will see it on Saturday night. But us as coaches, myself sees it every single day. And so the big emphasis for us is what kind of maturity do we have as individuals, as units, as O’s and D’s, and as an entire team? And then what kind of discipline do we have? Do we have the discipline to go out there? Look, we had to go a little bit lighter today on a Tuesday just because the nature of when the game was. We’re going to go a hell of a lot harder like we would normally do on a Wednesday tomorrow. Do we have the discipline to come out?

Guys that are dinged up, guys that maybe can’t go, the next guy that’s in there, do we have the maturity and the discipline to prepare like we need to prepare every single week? And we talked about what is your identity and what do you look for in a week like this with a different opponent? We look for the same things. We look for the guys that prepare in a very similar way. We look for guys that take everything as serious as it was last week. That’ll tell us a lot about the discipline and maturity of our team. And that’s also a part of us.

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