Amid ‘Fire Fickell’ chants, Badgers AD addresses Fickell status

Things got ugly for the Wisconsin Badgers on Saturday, who arguably suffered their worst loss since the Illinois Fighting Illini game in 2022, which saw head coach Paul Chryst get fired the day after. They were completely outmatched in a 27-10 loss to the Maryland Terrapins at home that never felt close after the opening drive.

In what was as must-win a game as the Badgers could be in, Wisconsin lost every facet of the game, struggling with miscues on special teams, an inefficient run game, and explosives on defense.

After the game, head coach Luke Fickell didn’t have many answers, pointing to the need to move forward because there isn’t any other way. And the calls for his firing grew, with fans loudly booing and chanting ‘Fire Fickell’ during the rough outing.

In fact, the loss was such a poor outing that it prompted Athletic Director Chris McIntosh to schedule a meeting with the Wisconsin State Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to share his ‘belief in the program and the people around our program, specifically Luke,’ referencing the head coach.

“When you have kids that have given it all and are faced with, as a program, adversity like this, I think it’s a time for our people to come together,” McIntosh told both outlets. “I think it’s a time for me to express my support.”

“I don’t think there’s anyone in the building that thinks that where we are at this moment in time right now, this is what Wisconsin football is,” McIntosh continued. “… I’ll come back to what I said earlier: What’s left to be done about that? What’s left to be done about that is to learn from what happened on a day like today and grow.”

McIntosh was instrumental in the move to hire Fickell after firing Paul Chryst back in 2022, bypassing interim head coach Jim Leonhard for the job. Widely lauded at the time, it has been a disappointing start to the Fickell era, and Saturday was an all-time low for the program.

Still, it seems that the Badgers’ brass have confidence in Fickell, brushing away questions about his job security, at least for the short term.

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