The last time Luke Fickell led a team into the Rose Bowl, it was the beginning of his second year at Cincinnati and it started a five-year span which saw the Bearcats go 53-10 under Fickell. It was also the first game of the Chip Kelly era for the Bruins. Fickell’s Bearcats won the game 26-17 and Bruin fans immediately wondered what UCLA had gotten itself into with Chip.
It goes without saying that, the last two times Wisconsin played UCLA at the Rose Bowl, things did not go the Bruins’ way. Of course, after UCLA lost to Miami in 1998, they played the Badgers in the Rose Bowl Game and Wisconsin won 38-31. Wisconsin also won when the schools met in the 1994 Rose Bowl Game. As if that’s not enough, the teams also met in the 2000 Sun Bowl and the Badgers won that one, too.
While Fickell was very successful at Cincinnati, he hasn’t succeeded much with the Badgers. In his first season, he did get them to the ReliaQuest Bowl after going 7-5 during the regular season, but Wisconsin only won five games in 2024 and just four games last season. The past two seasons landed him near the top of every list of coaches on the hot seat before the season began. To be sure, the Badgers’ 4-1 start has cooled his seat quite a bit, but it may end up being a brief respite if Wisconsin stumbles in the second half of the season.
As far as Fickel’s assistants at Wisconsin go, he has had a revolving door when it comes to offensive coordinators. Fickel is currently on his third offensive coordinator since arriving in Madison. His first offensive coordinator was Phil Longo, who was fired ten games into Fickell’s second season with the Badgers.
For 2025, Fickell brought in Jeff Grimes who had been the offensive coordinator at Kansas. Grimes had previously spent three seasons as Baylor’s offensive coordinator and the three seasons before that with BYU as the Cougars’ offensive coordinator.
The defensive side of the ball has been more stable. Part of that has to be attributed to the fact that Fickell was a defensive coach before becoming a head coach. Part of that is because Mike Tressel has been at Wisconsin as long as Fickell. In fact, Tressel came to Madison with Fickell after serving as Cincinnati’s defensive coordinator for two seasons.
But the Bruins may still have an advantage over the Wisconsin defense. That’s because UCLA’s defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler was Fickell’s co-defensive coordinator in 2023 and Hitschler coached under Fickell at Cincinnati for four seasons as well. So, while Fickell and Tressel are surely doing some things differently since then, Hitschler probably will recognize most of what they are trying to do when the Bruins have the ball.
Special Teams
Wisconsin’s kicker will be redshirt senior Gavin Lahm. So far, Lahm has made all nine of his field goal attempts and his longest was a 51-yarder against Western Illinois. At the same time, he did miss an extra point against the Leathernecks. As a result, he’s 17-for-18 on PATs.
Lahm is also the team’s primary kickoff specialist. He’s kicked off 31 times this season with 15 touchbacks. He is averaging 63.16 yards per kickoff. Freshman Brady Melum did kicked off once against Eastern Michigan for 64 yards but the kickoff went out of bounds.
Punting duties for the Badgers will be handled by junior Sean West. He is actually a rare breed these days — an American-born punter — though he may have learned to punt from his dad who played rugby at Villanova. He’s punted 18 times already this year after punting just 25 times last season. West is averaging 44.11 yards per punt and his longest went for 70 yards. Eight of his punts have landed inside the 20 while six have gone for more than 50 yards. Three of his punts were fair caught and two landed in the end zone for a touchback. It’s worth noting that, last season, he converted a pair of fake punts for first downs. One was a run and the other was a pass. So, UCLA needs to be prepared for this possibility.
Junior running back Nate Palmer has returned most of Wisconsin’s kickoffs. So far, he’s returned six of them. His longest was a 42-yarder and he’s averaging 28.17 yards per return. So, he has potential to break one big. Junior running back Juju Pope and sophomore running back Harrison Bortolotti have each returned one kickoff. Pope’s return was a modest 20-yard return while Bortolotti’s was an eight-yarder.
Redshirt senior receiver Tyrell Henry has returned three of the Badgers’ four punt returns. He’s averaging 11.0 yards per punt return with a long of 18 yards. Junior safety Carson van Dinter is credited with a 30-yard punt return after he blocked a punt and returned it for a touchdown.
Go Bruins!!!
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