Luke Fickell’s decisions vs Notre Dame show aggressiveness, restraint

GREEN BAY – Luke Fickell went into Wisconsin football’s season opener against Notre Dame with an aggressive mindset.

“If it was going to be fourth and anywhere in that three-to-four range, we were going to be very aggressive,” the Wisconsin coach said. “We knew that punting and field goals were not going to win games, especially against these guys.”

The extent of Fickell’s aggressive coaching decisions on fourth downs and other scenarios certainly were far from the deciding factor in a 41-13 loss to No. 5 Notre Dame. (The two turnovers and largely uncompetitive second half are much higher on the list of factors in the loss.)

That being said, Fickell showed his desired aggressiveness with some of the Week 1 decisions along with an apparent tentativeness in other decisions that might have gone against his own strategy.

Wisconsin’s decision to punt with about eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter might top the list of relatively conservative moves for a coach who did not want to rely on punting and field goals.

UW had a 21-point deficit at the time. The Badgers ran the ball to little success on first and second downs, had a Colton Joseph incomplete pass on third down and then sent the punt unit out on fourth-and-7 at midfield.

Fickell suggested that the Badgers were at a point where they “want to get the defense maybe back out to give a little better opportunity.” He also mentioned the risk of giving Notre Dame’s offense “a completely short field if we didn’t get it.”

“They weren’t playing very well either,” Fickell said of the Fighting Irish, which finished with 350 total yards and 5.7 yards per play.

The punt preceded Notre Dame’s 12-play, 88-yard touchdown drive that expanded the lead to 41-13 roughly six minutes after UW opted against extending the offense’s opportunity to cut it to 34-20 with a touchdown or even 34-16 with a field goal.

As Fickell discussed that situation, he also brought up UW’s decision to send out the punt unit on a fourth down on Notre Dame’s 36-yard line instead of giving Gavin Lahm a shot at a 50-plus-yard field goal in the second quarter. (Lahm’s two made field goals at Lambeau were from 27 and 36 yards out.)

Instead, the punt bounced into the end zone, netting only 16 yards.

“[Lahm is] about 92% from the middle,” Fickell said. “He’s about 90% from the left hash, and he drops down to 78% from the right hash. So there was a decision right there that in the heat of the moment probably would have said, ‘Go back and kick it.’”

Fickell did show some of his intended aggressiveness in the third quarter when he kept the offense on the field for fourth-and-1 from UW’s own 44-yard line in the third quarter. It paid off with a two-yard gain by running back Abu Sama on a drive that eventually ended with a 36-yard field goal.

Fickell also showed some last-minute competitiveness against Notre Dame that has not always been evident. After facing criticism after last year’s Michigan loss for not using his timeouts amid a 14-point deficit, he called a timeout after Joseph was sacked with 37 seconds remaining.

The timeout preceded another three plays that totaled 16 yards – an eight-yard completion, a sack for minus-nine yards and a 17-yard completion – before time expired.

“We got to go,” Fickell said. “Look, this is a journey. … They ask me, like, ‘What do you want to do?’ I’m, ‘Go.’ We can’t sit on this thing.”

It was similar to Fickell’s message at other points in the second half, which Notre Dame dominated with a 28-3 scoring advantage and touchdowns on every drive.

“In the second half, they score right off the bat,” Fickell said. “I said, ‘Guys, we got to go.’ They score again on a pick-six. I say, ‘Guys, we got to keep going.’ This isn’t ‘let’s figure out how we can slow this thing down and get out of here.’”

Now, Fickell’s Badgers need the results to match the mindset in the next 11 games of the 2026 season.

“We got a chance to be a good football team. … We just got to continue to be aggressive in everything that we’re doing.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Luke Fickell’s decisions vs Notre Dame show aggressiveness, restraint