The Wisconsin Badgers are down in the dumps, and Wisconsin alum Dan “Big Cat” Katz is down there with them.
“It’s an absolute disaster in Madison, Wisconsin,” Katz said on Tuesday’s edition of “Wake Up Barstool” about Wisconsin. “It’s a program in absolute hell. … it is the Titanic going down, and they are basically playing the violins on the decks of the Titanic … these are good people, but, at some point, you have to look in the mirror and say ‘this is not working. We need to fit it, and part of the fix is we shouldn’t be doing these jobs nowhere, in terms of head coach [Luke Fickell] and being the athletic director [Chris McIntosh] …
“You are not minimize out for what you are doing proper now. This can be a sunk-cost fallacy that Wisconsin goes with proper now, the place they’ve spent some huge cash on the top coach they usually spent some huge cash on rebuilding services for the soccer program. The extra money you place into the present iteration, the longer it’ll take to get out of this gap. You throw a bunch of cash subsequent yr, you perhaps scratch collectively seven wins, however you do not repair the precise construction and who’s in cost and who’s making these selections, after which you have got one other yr that is going to backside out. The longer you retain bottoming out and the longer you retain saying ‘hey, it is wonderful, we will simply throw cash at this,’ the longer you are going to be in irrelevancy.”
Following Wisconsin’s fifth consecutive loss and two consecutive shutouts at residence, Athletic Director Chris McIntosh launched a press release of “disappointment” in regards to the crew’s 2-5 file but additionally help for head coach Luke Fickell, saying that the college will proceed to make “investments” within the soccer program.
Fickell – who went a mixed 57-18 as head coach at Cincinnati from 2017-22, highlighted by a College Football Playoff look within the 2021 season – is in his third season at Wisconsin, with this system posting a 7-6 file in 2023 and a 5-7 file in 2024. The 2024 season marked the primary time that the Badgers did not qualify for a bowl recreation since 2001.
Fickell inked a roughly seven-year, $55 million cope with Wisconsin in November 2022; there is a roughly $25 million buyout in Fickell’s contract. In the meantime, McIntosh is in his fifth soccer season as Wisconsin’s athletic director.
This season, Wisconsin is 0-4 in Big Ten play and been out-scored in these contests 122-20 to open the 2025 season. Its offense ranks final within the convention in complete yards, at 271.3 per recreation, and factors at 13.3 per. On the opposite aspect of the ball, the Badgers are eleventh in opponent complete yards (341.9 per recreation) and thirteenth in opponent factors, with 24.3 allowed per recreation.
Wisconsin has three ranked opponents remaining on its 2025 schedule, starting with a street matchup in opposition to No. 6 Oregon this coming Saturday (7 p.m. ET on FS1 and the FOX Sports app). Its different two ranked matchups are a street recreation in opposition to No. 2 Indiana and a house matchup in opposition to No. 23 Illinois, with a pair of present 5-2 applications – Washington at residence and Minnesota on the street – rounding out the schedule.
“Repair it now. In any other case, it’ll get manner, manner worse. You guys are going to be those that killed the Wisconsin soccer program. It’d already be lifeless, however you’ll, for positive, kill it if you happen to hold doing the identical issues,” Katz expressed.
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