Luke Fickell provides injury updates on Emerson Mandell, hurt players from Week 1

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The Wisconsin Badgers were without right guard Emerson Mandell in Week 1, as they started Stylz Blackmon at right guard while rotating him and Blake Cherry against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Both provided mixed results, with Cherry seeing a 60/40 split of the snaps, and left me thinking Wisconsin does need Mandell back as soon as possible for this offense to reach its potential. Could that come in Week 2?

“I would hope so,” Fickell said this week on Mandell. “I think that we’ll see what Emerson has. We’ll maybe see if we can get him in some this week [in practice]. If he’s not, then next week. We’re hoping and believing that he’s getting closer to that.

“But it was very promising. Those two 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 two guys a lot of opportunities out there. But I’ll give you this, Stylz is another guy that we’re talking about as one of those 16 or 17 new starters that, not to say he’s never played in a game with that magnitude, but that venue and the moment weren’t too big for him. And so I think that’s a really promising thing for us as we continue to grow.”

Wisconsin did have a few other injuries pop up in Week 1, as Eugene Hilton looked banged up early, hence why he played so few snaps, while PJ Wilkins got dinged up, leading to Lucas Simmons-Johansson getting some reps. Is there any update on either player or any of the Week 1 injuries?

“Don’t know a ton yet,” Fickell said. “Today wasn’t as physical, so we couldn’t tell a whole lot of 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. It is a physical football game.I don’t care what anybody says.

“We didn’t have a ton of success as we didn’t run the ball well enough, but that 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. It was a physical, physical game in all areas. So, we do have some guys that are beat up that maybe haven’t played a lot of ball. So, we’ll see how they will handle this and work to recover. That will be a big deal for us and we’ll see this week how it all goes.”

Wisconsin’s return game took a hit with Hilton out on Sunday, as the Badgers couldn’t be as aggressive as they wanted to, while also having a field goal. He had some good reps in his limited playing time, catching three passes on just 17 total plays.

Since it isn’t a conference game, we’ll probably only get injury clarity near the end of the week, but Wisconsin is hoping for some returns this weekend.

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