Wisconsin targeting Luke Fickell

Donate To GopherHole
MNVCGUY said:
Yeah, some of the Wisconsin people who post here seemed to think it was a done deal and Leonhard would be the guy. The fact that they are shopping around is interesting and now if they go back to Leonhard eventually it kind of puts him in an awkward spot that they clearly wanted someone else but couldn't get them.
Click to expand...

From Eric The Red, a plugged-in Wisconsin fan




“From a source close to the situation ... the decision to hire Fickell (if true) would be a major change in plans from everything that was discussed over the past several weeks.

My understanding was they previously "kicked the tires" (horrible phrase, but it applies here, because there was no in-depth discussion) on Fickell but it didn't really go anywhere because even he assumed that we were hiring Leonhard. With Aranda, they knew they could get him. It doesn't appear they had that sense with Fickell (until perhaps this morning).

If it's Fickell, basically Mac knew and nobody else.”
 

USAF said:
This is a very good hire for the Skunks. Very very good. Fickell is a good coach and great recruiter.

No way to spin this positvely.
Click to expand...
Some great coaches in the big ten west.
 

Spaulding!No! said:
I’m guessing Chryst was fired knowing that fickle was on board with moving to uw. It makes sense now. Maybe, slight favor to Leonard that uw gave him HC role for resume. Win win for all involved.
Click to expand...
Rumor is that Fickell was choice 1 and Nebraska was sniffing around. They made the move to beat Nebraska to the guy. But wanted to keep it under wraps until cincinatti season was done.
I wish cinci had beaten Tulane. It would’ve been a long weak of silence from Madison
 

USAF said:
This is a very good hire for the Skunks. Very very good. Fickell is a good coach and great recruiter.

No way to spin this positvely.
Click to expand...

Everybody thought he was waiting for Ohio State to open up. If he turns out to be as good as you say (at a higher level) chances are he’ll jump ship in the semi-near future either to there or to another blue blood.
 

OK - let's be honest here.

A deal like this does NOT get done in 24 or 48 hours. no way. too big, too much money.

that means that someone - the AD, boosters, agents - has been talking about this for a while behind the scenes.

as I said earlier, Leonhard has a lot of fans among the Badger faithful. While most Badger fans will be happy to land a 'big-name' coach, there will be some grumbling about the way it was handled.

and how do the players feel?
 


Pompous Elitist said:
Everybody thought he was waiting for Ohio State to open up. If he turns out to be as good as you say (at a higher level) chances are he’ll jump ship in the semi-near future either to there or to another blue blood.
Click to expand...
And on the contrary. Wisconsin has an identity
This coach is total opposite.

All gun.
4-2-5 defense.
Wisconsin will likely look different from any Wisconsin team we have ever seen.

It could move wisconsin up a tier. Or it could send Wisconsin the way of Nebraska or richrod Michigan
 



Gophers_4life said:
Who's paying for what it would cost???

Fickell is making $5M/year and locked in through 2028. Whomever wants him, will have to pay that buyout too.


Really think Fickell wants to wait for Ohio State to fire Day.
Click to expand...
With two consecutive losses to Michigan, Day may need to exorcise the spirits John Cooper left behind.

Leonhard (check your spelling peeps!) is kind of a "go into the future by going back to the basics" choice and I'm sure there are some that wonder if the House that Alvarez Built is in need of an upgrade (or at least a different mindset) going forward. I'm not questioning Leonhard's ability, but it almost seems like when the Gophers hired two straight "M" men back in the mid/late-70s with Stoll and Salem. Leonhard certainly has the pedigree as a player and assistant coach, but that doesn't necessarily translate when you move to the big chair. My guess is a lot of teams with a head coaching vacancy will have Fickell on their lists, but he is, as others have pointed out, in a really great situation.

If Leonhard doesn't get the head coaching job at Wisconsin, I will conjecture that he will be the next defensive coordinator for the Packers, which is a job that Leonhard turned down a couple of years ago.
 



short ornery norwegian said:
OK - let's be honest here.

A deal like this does NOT get done in 24 or 48 hours. no way. too big, too much money.

that means that someone - the AD, boosters, agents - has been talking about this for a while behind the scenes.

as I said earlier, Leonhard has a lot of fans among the Badger faithful. While most Badger fans will be happy to land a 'big-name' coach, there will be some grumbling about the way it was handled.

and how do the players feel?
Click to expand...
They were definitely never going to hire JL (unless maybe they won the division).
This new AD is very much not Barry Alvarez.
 

Some guy said:
A 4-2-5 guy who calls his own defense isn’t going to keep on a 3-4 guy as DC

Maybe if they were philosophically the same I could see it
Click to expand...
That is interesting, and potentially a far more impactful thing.

Wisc has been, and recruited a long time, for being a 3-4 team.


Is Fickell going to blow that up?
 


What is Fickell's buyout at Cincy, and what group of Wisc super donors are going to be paying that off?
 



Goldmember said:
They were definitely never going to hire JL (unless maybe they won the division).
This new AD is very much not Barry Alvarez.
Click to expand...
This move should be scarier for both gophers fans and Wisconsin fans.

This move has both more upside and downside than hiring internal.

Wisconsin could be a 6-10 win team in perpetuity if they kept it in house
 

Fleck, Coach C/Simon and Rossi is a winning combination. Rhule and Fickell have more accolades than Fleck, but I think if we can keep the band together we will be just fine. The big differentiator is that the Gophers don't have the fan base WI and NE do. We need a donor or a Fortune 500 company to come alongside the Gophers to lift them up a notch.
 


We’ll see how it works out. Can this offense work at Wisconsin with the type of guys they routinely get (he’ll need more mobile OL than what they have currently). Also leaving much more fertile recruiting grounds. It’ll take some time but they should still be a hard nosed defense first team. If it doesn’t work and they passed up Leonhard for a situation that blows up, the fan base will lose their minds as many thought he was the right choice for a long time
 


Goldmember said:
They were definitely never going to hire JL (unless maybe they won the division).
This new AD is very much not Barry Alvarez.
Click to expand...

This feels very much like flying by the seat of the pants. No guarantee, at all, this total makeover works out for Wisconsin. They can’t hire the same athletes as Ohio State.
 




Goldmember said:
LOL. In Badgerland they will believe anything.
Click to expand...

It’s not inconceivable the AD kept a very tight leash on information. They did a good job when everyone from the media to boosters to fans to staff are gobsmacked and none of this leaked out of the AD office.
 

Gophers_4life said:
An actual major program would be able to pay it off with donors.
Click to expand...
A big ten or sec program doesn’t really have to have donors anymore. The buyouts for both Chryst and Fickell coming out of media payout still leaves them with more money leftover than they had from the media deal 7 years ago
 

Pompous Elitist said:
It’s not inconceivable the AD kept a very tight leash on information. They did a good job when everyone from the media to boosters to fans and none of this leaked out of the AD office.
Click to expand...
Usually stuff like this doesn’t happen slowly(in the media) or loudly. This is kind of like a low budget version of Brian Kelly to LSU
 

What I said still holds.

An Alabama, Georgia, even Tennessee, etc. they don't have to "waste" athletic dept revenue to pay that off. Donors would take care of it.
 



Fickell is a really good coach, but seems risky to burn bridges w someone like Leonhard for a guy who’d likely leave for OSU at the first opportunity.
 

SPEGOPHER said:
Fickell is a really good coach, but seems risky to burn bridges w someone like Leonhard for a guy who’d likely leave for OSU at the first opportunity.
Click to expand...
And a guy who is completely different schematically that would risk the Wisconsin identity
But maybe that’s what Wisconsin wants
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom