Wisconsin & Fickell Handing Back DNA to Rhule & Nebraska
By Rock Westfall
Before Barry Alvarez's arrival in 1990, the Wisconsin Badgers were struggling, often being compared to the Kansas State Wildcats as the worst program in college football.
Alvarez, who had a successful stint as the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame, including a key role in their 1988 national championship, had a formative experience playing for the legendary Bob Devaney at the University of Nebraska. Devaney was in the early stages of building a national powerhouse that would last for four decades while winning five national championships. Alvarez's time at Nebraska, under Devaney's tutelage, would significantly shape his coaching philosophy.
Devaney inherited a miserable Nebraska program upon taking over in 1962. But Devaney quickly turned the Cornhuskers around with a culture based on a farm-state work ethic, toughness, resilience, targeted and effective recruiting, a strong walk-on program, and an emphasis on interior line play.
Alvarez studied Devaney's program and never forgot the lessons. And when he took over at Wisconsin he applied what he learned from Nebraska and Devaney. By 1993, Alvarez led Wisconsin to a Rose Bowl championship and forged a consistent Big Ten contender for the next three decades using his Nebraska DNA.
The great irony is that Wisconsin’s imitation of Nebraska’s historic success has been flipped. Today, Wisconsin is copying the traits of Nebraska’s eventual self-destruction that began in 2003. Meanwhile, the Huskers are on the path to recovery, using the Alvarez formula for a brighter future.
A Lesson Not to Be Learned
Steve Pederson, an alumnus of the University of Nebraska, had a deep understanding of Nebraska's unique ways and blueprint for success, having served as the recruiting coordinator for the Big Red. Yet, when he assumed the role of athletic director in 2002, Pederson made a fateful decision to reinvent the wheel.
After a successful 9-3 regular season in 2003, Pederson made the controversial decision to fire head coach Frank Solich. Solich, who had played for the Big Red under Devaney and became Tom Osborne’s top assistant before replacing the legendary 3-time national champion in 1998, departed with a remarkable .753 winning percentage and had led the 2001 Huskers to the national championship game.
Pederson felt that Solich’s ways were antiquated and vowed to modernize the program instead of “surrendering” to the elite powers of the Big 12. Pederson believed that Nebraska needed an outsider with no previous ties to the program and a more contemporary offensive approach.
Pederson settled on Bill Callahan after being humiliated by a lack of preparation, numerous rejections, and a readily available replacement for Solich. Callahan was praised for his recruiting but could only manage a .551 winning percentage before he and Pederson were shown the door in 2007.
Nebraska insiders and fans believe Solich's firing set the program back 20 years. Only now does there appear to be faith that second-year coach Matt Rhule will restore the Big Red to glory.
Pederson departed his alma mater in disgrace and has never lived it down. But then Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh said, “Hold my beer.”
An Inside Job on Killing a Program
Like Steve Pederson’s relationship to Nebraska, Chris McIntosh is a Wisconsin alum. McIntosh played for Alvarez and was a key contributor as an All-American offensive tackle for two Rose Bowl winners. Later, he served as Alvarez's Deputy AD before replacing the legend in 2021.
If anyone knew the culture of the Wisconsin Badgers, it was McIntosh. As a former UW offensive lineman, McIntosh knew what a privilege it was to play that position in the Badger State. Being an offensive lineman is one of the highest honors in Wisconsin. Indeed, everyone knows your name.
Physical football and toughness were the Nebraska blueprint that Alvarez took with him. McIntosh saw a perennial doormat become a regular Big Ten contender with the formula. Yet he decided to blow it up by firing head coach Paul Chryst after a 2-3 start in 2022.
Chryst departed with a .720 winning percentage, two appearances in the Big Ten championship game, and was within one score of making the 2017 College Football Playoff.
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Like Steve Pederson at Nebraska, McIntosh believed that Chryst’s program was falling behind and needed to be modernized. McIntosh surprised everyone when he passed over interim head coach and Chryst’s standout defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard for Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell. The popular and nationally respected Leonhard became a two-time All-American as a walk-on safety, epitomizing what the Wisconsin program and its Nebraska DNA were all about.
Fickell had great success at Cincinnati but not much familiarity with the Wisconsin program and its unique culture. McIntosh and Fickell talked of modernizing the offense with an Air Raid approach, hiring former North Carolina and Ole Miss offensive coordinator Phil Longo in the process.
After the first month of Fickell’s second season, the Wisconsin program has lost its identity of toughness and grit. The Badgers are no longer recognizable. The expected recruiting bonanza has failed to materialize, and the Badgers have been forced to use quarterbacks from the transfer portal in both of Fickell’s seasons.
This year, Tyler Van Dyke arrived as a failed refugee from the Miami Hurricanes but was lost for the season after an injury in a bad home loss to Alabama.
What is most alarming is that Fickell's program has no identity. The ground-and-pound running attack, complemented by game-manager quarterbacks and stout defenses, served Wisconsin well. Now that formula is gone. The Badgers are unrecognizable. Wisconsin has become post-Solich Nebraska. And Fickell is morphing into Bill Callahan.
An Unforgiveable Destruction
I was born and raised in the old Big Eight country but eventually moved to Wisconsin. While I respected and enjoyed the Wisconsin program, never missing a telecast, I still followed Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas State, and Kansas with greater interest.
It took me several years before I finally decided to attend a game at Camp Randall Stadium. In less than an hour, I was blown away by the immense pride and loyalty of the fans. Camp Randall is a tremendous gameday experience, among the best to be found anywhere, and the Badgers played an old-school but highly effective brand of football that I immediately took to. I was instantly hooked and loved how, like Nebraska, Wisconsin fans “traveled” like few other programs.
I was against Chryst's firing. It is true the program was sliding some, but after a similar bad start in 2021, he dug out, leading UW to a 9-4 record, a Las Vegas Bowl win, and a 6-3 mark in the conference. Like Dan Mullen at Florida, Chryst built up enough equity to deserve at least one more season.
I never bought into Fickell's hiring, not because of the coach but because of the fit. Those exposed to Wisconsin football under Alvarez understand what a uniquely special program it was and how much pride the Badger State had in it.
Previously, Wisconsin had a profound advantage with its old system that would be even more pronounced today. It could recruit good players that nobody else wanted to play a system nobody else was using, making for perfect fits. As Wayne Gretzky would say, the Badgers went to where the puck was not. And it worked.
Now, the Badgers are recruiting against the elite programs trying to do the same thing but with superior NIL structures while trying to be something that they are not and can never be. It doesn’t work.
Wisconsin fumbled Nebraska’s DNA back to the Big Red, and Chris McIntosh has become the Steve Pederson of Wisconsin.
In the Cornhusker State, they sing "There is no place like Nebraska." Indeed, that is true. And the same could be said for Wisconsin, at least until recently.
There is no coming back from this. It will not end well. Fan apathy is setting in. The worst is still to come, followed by countless years trying to reclaim what once was.
Nebraska fans lived this movie before. It's a miserable experience that could have been avoided.
To witness the needless destruction of something so authentic and uniquely successful is unforgivable.
