Badgers, now under Fickell’s leadership, focused on winning bowl game

Dec 13, 2022 | 10:34 PM

MADISON, Wis. — To use Luke Fickell’s word, it has been a “whirlwind” since he was introduced as Wisconsin’s head football coach.

The new coach has hit the ground running since taking over the program and has had a lot to balance, including how to handle the Guaranteed Rate Bowl later this month with a handful of Badgers transferring or declaring for the NFL draft.

Asked how he’ll handle that challenge, he said the team will do it in the only way he knows how: going out and winning it.

“I don’t worry about one bit about — can we be competitive or not? The whole objective is to win, it’s not to be competitive,” he said. “Whether I’m just walking in the door, it would be a complete disrespect to every one of those kids sitting in the seats to think that they were brought here but yet we don’t think that they can put a competitive, even have a competitive advantage on a field with a really good football team.”

The bowl game will also be Jim Leonhard’s with the Badgers after he announced last week he would be leaving the team. Leonhard has been the Badgers’ defensive coordinator since 2017 and rose to the interim head coach role following Paul Chryst’s ouster in early October.

The Badgers will take on Oklahoma State in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl on Dec. 27.