Everything Luke Fickell said ahead of Iowa showdown

Fresh off a 24-7 win over the USC Trojans, the No. 25 Wisconsin Badgers are set to take on the Iowa Hawkeyes on Saturday in one of their biggest games of the season.

Wisconsin has been embarrassed in this matchup over the past two years, losing a combined 79-10, and is looking to avenge their loss and snap a four-game losing streak to the Hawkeyes.

Ahead of the game, head coach Luke Fickell spoke with the media, breaking down the matchup and all the important topics going into the game.

Here's everything Fickell said in his weekly presser ahead of Wisconsin's Week 9 game against Iowa.

Again, don't want to dwell upon the recap. I'm sure you'll ask some questions about it, but all in all, a great weekend, not just for us, but, I think, for a lot of things. I don't want to say Sunday was quite as good as Saturday night was with the Brewers and us both having big victories, but some really good things. To be honest with you, I was hoping for about 40 degrees, maybe a little rain, maybe light snow last Saturday, maybe thinking that guys coming in from Southern California would be a little bit better for us. Would we get 65, 68-degree weather and a perfect night? Then, the good thing was that we played well.

And so all's well that ends well, and it was a great weekend and a great night. But I didn't want to steal the thunder as the game ended and we celebrated, and those guys enjoyed the locker room to move forward onto next week. But I know for me, after about 4 or 5 minutes of finally finding a way off the field and saying hello to the family and things like that, my brain unfortunately started to move forward to, obviously, this week, rivalry week in particular. And so, I didn't want to take that from the players as they celebrated, and we enjoyed a little time there in the locker room. I told them to celebrate and enjoy, but I also left them with a little bit of that, hey, just remind yourself, remember this no arrogance or delusion, is really important, especially as we move ourselves forward to making sure we understand that, this next week what this thing brought to us.

And so, excited about rivalry week. It hasn't been great for us. And to be honest with you, you can point a few things at it, but I can tell you right off the bat here, I think we've been outrushed in this game over the last 3 years, like 740 to 350. I think that turnover margin in the last 3 years is 7 to 1. And so there's a lot of things that haven't gone well for us in this rivalry game. And we need to do a whole lot to change that. And it's not going to be easy. I don't know if there's a tougher place to play in the country, but that's what, that's why you go ahead and play this thing. And so for us, focus on ourselves too. I think we are getting better.

And I think that's probably the thing that leaves me awake at night as much as anything is, hey, are we consistently being good? Are we finding ways for us to grow and get better? And that's not just in one or two phases, that's in all that we're doing. And so it gives us another week to be able to do that, and so we're excited about that. I saw a bunch of guys trying to get the first question in there, so there must be some things that are hanging out there I don't even know about.

On changing the approach to rivalry games…

I think there's a balance there. Like, look, rivalries are still what makes college football, right? And we got to make sure we understand that this is a rivalry. This is the Heartland Trophy. Obviously it's been since 2004, but nonetheless it is. I think the big thing I didn't want to do was put too much emphasis on one in particular game as we went through spring football, as we went through fall camp, didn't mean I didn't want to focus on the rival. Didn't mean we didn't want to talk about the rival. Didn't mean we didn't want to understand who our opponents are going to be. But it did kind of say maybe there were some things that didn't, work out as well for us last year, putting a lot of emphasis, in the offseason, into the rivalry games in particular.

But I think it has a little bit more to do with us going into this week as much as anything, is, we got to be smart about the things that we're doing. We got to make sure we still continue to focus on us and how we're going to grow. Each and every week you have certain things you got to be able to do to have success in a football game, and sometimes each week's a little bit different. I can tell you this, stopping the run is still a critical part, and being able to run the football in every game is going to be critical. But I did stop trying to say, hey, let's take this offseason and spend a lot of time focusing on certain things, and as much as say, hey, let's focus on ourselves, we got a lot of new players, got a lot of new guys. We gotta really kind of enhance and develop this culture from within. And so we did probably spend a lot more time in that as opposed to studying and knowing, not that us coaches didn't, but as a program, in preparing for maybe this one or these couple rivalry games.

On Stylz Blackmon playing center and the offensive line facing Iowa…

I mean, I can't say that the last game wasn't a litmus test in seeing where the offensive line is, but I think there's a test, obviously, anytime you play Iowa, to say, okay, hey, you talk about being consistently good. Well, no one's been consistently good better, right? I don't know if that's even a word, good better, but longer, I should say than Iowa, and in particular, offensive line, defensive line. And so there is a test. There's a test every week. This is just a little bit of a unique, different test that we haven't done as well in.

So I think it gives us a better indication of some things and where we are. As far as Stylz, I think that, again, I think he's playing well. I think the thing about Stylz is we don't want to continue to move him around. I would love for him to get an opportunity to have some consistency at a position for longer than a week or 2 or 3. And, right now, I don't know exactly what that means just yet. I think he can play either position. I think it does have a little bit to do with where Austin [Kawecki] is and how comfortable Austin is as he comes back. And then trying to figure out what does give us the best opportunity to have our best 5 guys out there.

And so with Stylz having the versatility, with Stylz's ability to move around, that puts him in a position where we're going to ask a lot more out of him. And so I don't want to make him a master or a jack of all trades and a master of none, but nonetheless, I think that he has been able to handle it. And right now he'll probably have to continue to handle it for us.

On the run defense and Iowa's rushing attack…

Yeah, I don't want to put too much on our ability to have stopped the run so far because it's going to be a completely different challenge for us to be able to stop the run. But I think that we've always focused on, hey, can you play physical? Can you play really good down the middle to be able to stop the run? And so we've done a really good job. Those guys have done a great job so far this year.

And again, this is going to be a different test, not that one that you can't look back at and say, oh, pretty glaring when they've outrushed you in 3 years, 740 yards to 350 or 40-some yards, that we've got our work cut out for us. It'll be another great challenge. There are some things we got to do a little bit differently, but nonetheless, it still comes down to physicality. It's still coming down to controlling the line of scrimmage that we've done a really good job of so far this year. Like I said, sometimes stats don't tell the whole story. Last week it'll go down to -17 yards, which is what, the second-best since 1950 or something like that? And yes, there's a lot of negative yards played, sacks in particular, that help you with that. But I think it's been really good for us this year, but it's going to be a completely different challenge.

On Sebastian Cheeks' growth and leadership…

Yeah, I think for Sebastian in particular, I think one of the big jumps he made is, I think this past week. And it's not because, see, he had 2.5 sacks, or he had X amount of pressures and hurries. I think the big step that Sebastian made was Sebastian was dinged up for a bit of the week. Maybe guys didn't know it, but he was maybe a little bit questionable going into Tuesday, Wednesday practice. And so for Sebastian to make some of those steps of, hey, preparing himself, getting ready, maybe not being able to practice as much or do the things he wants to do on Tuesday and Wednesday, but to still be prepared and ready to play on Saturday, I think that was a big step for Sebastian.

I know he's an older guy, but sometimes that's not the easiest thing in the world for guys that haven't missed or haven't been out or haven't had some injuries. And so I think it told our guys a lot, his ability to prepare, his ability to maybe not be at his fullest on Tuesday and Wednesday, but yet still be able to go out there and perform. So I think, he's, he's shown those guys that, they have the utmost respect for him and how he goes about his business, that he'll be there on Saturdays. I think that's one of those big things that we do things in a certain way. Like I said, people talk about Posa and Catalano every single day, and Sebastian, like I said, he does it as well.

But when a time when you're a little bit dinged up, to show guys what kind of maturity you have and how you prepare and that you'll be ready on Saturday, I think that's a big step, especially as we push down this thing through the second half of the season.

No, I did not talk to him before the game. I don't know that I had some different conversation. I didn't want to make it bigger than it was, even though I knew it was big. And so for him, I wanted him to not think I was singling him out like, oh, like, oh God, we got to do something special here. W e got the utmost faith in him, hadn't had a ton of opportunities because of all the things that he's dealt with.

But nonetheless, I thought he did a really good job. I think that the moment wasn't too big, and we've said that in the past about a few guys, but when a guy's been out for as long as he has and it means so much to him, that's one of those things that sometimes you do worry a little bit about. Not that he's gonna turn anything down by any means, like the guy would lose an arm to be out there, but will he have the maturity and the control to be able to play the game the way the game needs to be played? And I thought he did a really good job.

We've kind of felt like Abu was going to be a guy that we were going to count on all year, from the time we got into spring football all the way through fall camp. And unfortunately, I think the first couple weeks he was healthy, hadn't been as healthy. And so this week, we felt like he was finally back to a spot where hopefully he could be healthier and maybe carry the ball, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, who knows, 17 times a game.

So it was finally that first probably opportunity that we actually had to feed him a little bit more. And sometimes they even come out of it saying, I wish we could have done it a few more times. But I feel like Abu's in a better place. I feel like he's getting more confidence in what it is he's doing, and it's not playing the game, but it's even in his health, that he is a little bit more aggressive in some of the things.

And so I thought it was a good start for him last week. It was a good balance there between him and B-Jack (Bryan Jackson) with DeeDee (Darrion Dupree) being a little bit dinged up. It's going to be a challenge for us to figure out who those guys are going to be. I know that Abu is going to be one of them, but, we should get DeeDee back and feeling more healthier, and B-Jack, who's proved a little bit more. So that entire room, there's a uniqueness of saying, hey, you love to play a lot of defensive linemen, right? And if they only play 15, 20, 25 snaps, that's good.

I think there's a thing with tailbacks that you got— it's harder to roll 3 guys in there. So the ability to say, hey, Abu's going to be, if he's your one, then he needs to get 60-65% of those reps. Who's the next piece? Who becomes the hot hand? And so I think that the offense in general has some work to do with that, but I think our guys have some work to do with that and as they prove things during the week.

I mean, we could go for quite a while here on not just the longevity of things, but their ability to not adapt what they don't have to adapt in the landscape of college football, that they've continued to do things in a cultural way that has been really impressive. Not to mention their play. I mean, nobody's been more consistent defensively, not just in statistical analysis of how they've played, but in the consistency of the way that they've played it since I studied them, I don't know, 25 years ago. They've made changes, but they haven't changed.

And they've adapted, but they've not changed. And so I know that's a uniqueness, they've always been a team that's going to focus on running the football, but they've grown and doing things differently as well. And so I think that, in a time of craziest amounts of change in college football, if there's one place that stands out more than any other in the country that has been able to do it in a consistent way, in the way that they know is best for them, is Iowa. And I've always had the utmost respect for what it is that they've done, and even more so over the last 4 or 5 years.

On transfer portal evaluation and additions…

We've, we've hit that in a lot of different ways. Obviously we know that each year has been unique, this year being a little bit different in the sense that we were looking for starters, and then you had to have resources in order to do that. And so that's why it was different. I think the numbers are still going to be, have been up there, a little bit higher than what you would want in the transfer world, to be honest with you, is the way we want to do things.

But it also comes down to when you're looking for guys in particular that you think have got to be starters, you had to have some resources. So the biggest difference this past year was what we were looking for in particular, like, man, we are going to need a heavy number of starters in the transfer world, to the resources that we had. It's not the way you want to live your life, I can promise you that, but it also has been what we had to be able to do.

And so, knock on wood, so far it's gone pretty well. We've created some depth that, through that world of not even knowing exactly what it is that you've got until you get into it. But that's not the way we want to continue.

On the sideline penalty involving Brady Collins…

Okay, so I don't know that I've ever not got a warning. I don't know that I've ever not— and I've only been a head coach for not a whole long time. I don't know, 10, 12 years, whatever it is. I've never not got a warning. Now, if I was an assistant coach, they would never have told me if there was a warning, probably. I guess you'd see the flag. I don't want to go all the way back to there, but no, I've never not gotten a warning for a sideline, and I don't think I've ever seen a personal foul called.

To be honest with you, I see it all the time. we just were clipping a few plays, not that I'm gonna send them, that they were like, hey, put that back. Oh, look, he ran into the official with no, with no flag of any sorts. I don't know. Did not send it in, haven't made any calls. It's just we've got to figure out the ways that we got to be better at the things that we do. But I would hope in the future that is not something that's in our game. I mean, whether it's for us or against us, like, that's not what we need. There's enough stuff going on the field. There's enough stuff that we're trying to all get better at and fixed. That's not one that we should be worrying about, you guys should have to worry about, and for sure shouldn't be called.

I don't know. I look, I just try to get myself out of there to go, get back to the team and things like that. I don't know what the rules are. I don't know if there's all the different fines of some sorts. Like, there's things that you can't stop. Like, I hate to say it's a part of college football, it's great about what the environments are in college sports in particular. Obviously there's a safety piece to this thing that we all got to be cognizant of, but I don't think it's malicious by any means. I think that shows college football hasn't changed, that there's some traditional things that make college football and college campuses so unique and so special.

On Cairo Skanes's development and versatility…

Cairo's another guy that, like I said, he's been able to play a lot of different things and do a lot of different things for us. He's the guy that, as you asked about the transfer world in the past, we were looking for guys that maybe had starting experience because you had some young guys— Cairo, Jai'mier Scott— that were guys that you felt really good about the future of them, just they hadn't played a ton.

And so Cairo's been a guy that has played multiple positions, started off at corner, played safety, 2 weeks ago got thrown in, and even this past week at nickel, where I don't even know if he took any reps during the week at. But he's a guy that the game isn't too big, the game isn't too fast. I still think he's just scratching the surface of what he is and what he's going to be, but he's a guy that is very valuable to us, and his name might not be mentioned or talked about as a starter, but in everything that we do, he's a guy that's a starter for us.

On building quarterback depth in the transfer portal era…

I don't know that the approach has changed, right? I mean, like, you want to have a room full of guys that you feel like the next starter, the next guy that can win in this league is in your room. It's just becoming and has been more difficult. It hasn't just been the transfer portal world. It hasn't just been the NIL world. That's been something to me over the last 10 years before the transfer portal started, before the NIL world started.

It was one of those things that you saw I think the top 30 quarterbacks in the nation, whoever you want to rank them by— Rivals, 247— I think when I did the study 2 years ago, I think over 75 percent of those kids had transferred from where they originally had gone to school. Whether that was— used to be the old grad transfer— whether that was early on when guys had to sit out, or this newer age where you don't have to sit out, I think over the last 10 years, it's been one of those things that's been more difficult. And I don't know that it's going to change, but it's something that I know every coach, obviously has a plan for.

But your plans have got to be able to adapt and adjust. And so, I feel like we're in a better place. I don't know about everybody else. A lot of times, as you've seen some of these guys that have left other places and gone and are having great success. There's a lot of really good players, quarterbacks in particular, out there that might not be starting. Hard part is you just don't know who they are and where they are. And so a lot of people need their opportunities, not a lot of people need their chances, and a lot of people are going to get them because of the nature of the game.

On Javan Robinson's impact on the defense…

I think anytime you got guys that you feel like are playing at or above their talent level gives you that opportunity. J-Rob's just been a guy for us, and to be honest with you, it's a great example of you don't know everything when you get a guy. And he was a guy that obviously had a lot of starts under his belt and had played good in his career. And to be honest with you, he's exceeded a lot of the things that maybe I even originally had thought of him, because sometimes as you see him walk in, you might think he's a little bit smaller, he's not quite as big, he's not. And he's everything but that.

And so he's doing a great job, and he showed us a lot this past week too because he'd been a guy that missed a little bit of time. He came out of the UCLA game, wasn't able to go a whole lot this week, but you— we got another look at what maturity looks like, what a pro playing the game looks like. And I don't mean just an NFL player, but a pro, meaning he can take care of the things he needs to take care of, whether he can get every rep, Tuesday and Wednesday or not.

But when Saturday comes, you can trust him. And not only can you trust him to go out there and play, but you can trust him to be honest with you to say, hey, I can do this. as opposed to, do you put the faith in a guy that you don't know as much about to say, can he really be prepared? Do we really want to put him out there? Because every play matters. But he continues to, I'd say surprise me, but he continues to impress me every day in all that he does.

On Junior Poyser and the defensive front…

That's where we knew coming into the season, I thought last year we were really strong. I didn't say we were great, but like we had, we had depth in that spot last year. We were able to roll guys. Guys were able to play 25, 30, 35 snaps tops. As we came into this year, we were missing a lot of those guys. And so as we brought Junior in, he was a guy that we felt like had good upside, had played in the MAC for really only a year. And so just kind of like, okay, how well is he going to transition? Is he gonna take an extra year?

As you look at Charles Perkins from last year, he didn't play much for us, and he's a completely different player this year. And as Junior came in, I'm not saying we didn't expect him to be able to play and play well for us, but you always wonder what that transition is going to be like. And I think he fit in pretty good initially, has played in every single game, and played a significant role. But I think you are starting to see him get a little better grasp of the level of ball, the way that which he has to play, and the confidence of which he can play with.

And so it has nothing to do with ability because he's got the size, he's got the strength, he's got the quickness to be able to do it. I think we're seeing Junior get more comfortable and confident in all that he does. And we're going to need him down the stretch, and in particular this week for sure.

On the defensive performance against USC…

Yeah, I think as much as anything, what it showed us is, and hopefully reminds our guys, that consistently good can win, and consistently good can win against really good talent. And I'm not saying that— not putting them down or saying anything different- but like sometimes you think that you gotta do some things differently. You gotta, you gotta do this you gotta blitz. I mean, like, I think the thing that our defense has done a really good job of, Coach Tressel and that entire staff and the players, that is they've recognized consistency. Right.

And their abilities to say each and every week, meaning, 2 weeks ago against UCLA, maybe the focus was a little bit more on stopping the run, and they'd had a tailback that had been leading— I'm not saying the Big Ten, if he was leading the Big Ten or is leading the Big Ten in rushing. And how you have to be able to play to a game— you go the next week against USC that's got a little bit more of a throw-it mentality, but you still have to be able to stop the run.

And understanding that consistency in what you do gives you the best chance to not only play well but be able to make adjustments as you get into game. And I thought that last week, as we got into the game, between the plan and the consistency, we were able to make some adjustments based on who they were and what they were doing. Because sometimes, until you actually see that kind of speed and that have to play in that kind of space that we don't play in every day, you got to be able to make some adjustments during the— during the game. And I think with the consistency, the ability to make those adjustments was where I think they've done a better job than they have over the last 3 years.