Everything Luke Fickell said after Badgers loss to Iowa
· Yahoo Sports
The Wisconsin Badgers were embarrassed 30-0 by the Iowa Hawkeyes in yet another rivalry game flop, as they fell to 5-3 on the season and 3-2 in conference play.
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It was a game where Wisconsin lost on every side and was awfully reminiscent of the team’s previous two losses to Iowa. Luke Fickell has now been outscored 124-16 in his four games at Wisconsin against Iowa.
After the game, Fickell spoke with the media, outlining his frustrations and sharing his thoughts on the game. Here’s everything he said after the loss on Saturday.
Opening Statement
Well, that’s an old-fashioned ass whooping, and it doesn’t feel good. Were we prepared? Were we not prepared? We didn’t play like we were prepared today. They asked me if there were any positives, and I said I don’t know that I could find any positives in the way that we played, the way we performed.
Yeah, they kept battling no matter what, but that’s a foregone conclusion. You have to do that. It’s, do you battle with the intent? Do you have the intensity to understand what it’s going to be like when you walk into this place and what you have to do in order to not just win, but make this a game? And we did none of that today. It’s very, very disappointing.
I’m not sitting here saying I’ve got any answers for you. I’m not pointing any fingers at anybody because all three phases of the game, we were completely manhandled for 60-plus minutes.
On why this keeps happening vs. Iowa…
I don’t know. We made an overemphasis on it in the past, on the rivalry and what we needed to be able to do all of spring football and all of winter and all of fall. And then this year, it’s like, look, let’s make sure we understand, we respect the rivalry, but we don’t overdo something that is going to put us in a position where we play too emotional and can’t play 60-plus minutes. And we didn’t do that either.
I think first of all, you’ve got to win the line of scrimmage. And I know that we can honestly say for the last couple years, we have not done that. And so anything beyond that, there’s a lot of other things, but that’s where it starts and that’s where it has been.
On whether Iowa’s recent dominance has affected Wisconsin’s confidence in the rivalry…
No, I don’t. There’s so many guys here that don’t even know or understand what’s happened the last couple years. We explained it and talked about it and went through some of those things, but they didn’t live it. So it’s not like they have some shell shock of some remembrance of what has happened. I don’t think that’s the case.
It’s just the sheer fact that we didn’t play today. Whether there’s an arrogance and a delusion coming off of last week that we felt like we were in a different place, I hope we have more maturity than that. But surely it didn’t look like it today.
On the decision to replace Colton Joseph at quarterback…
I just thought it was an opportunity, and it was some time we needed to try to find a way to have a little bit of a spark. The situation was where it was. We weren’t able to run the football, so we felt like, hey, look, I don’t know that we need to keep Colton in there and keep trying to run him to see if he can get us going.
Let’s give the young kid an opportunity. Let’s see if we can find any spark and some things that we need to see.
On whether the quarterback change provided a spark and what the team needs to improve…
I don’t know. I think we do need to see the way people are playing us. Either way, we’ve talked about this. If we don’t continue to understand that we have to get better each and every week, then no, we will not be who we want to be.And whether you take a really disappointing loss or you have an incredible emotional victory, either way, you’ve got to be able to ingest it. You’ve got to be able to apply it. You’ve got to be able to grow from it.
And this one’s going to be a hell of a lot harder to grow from because there’s going to be some glaring things on film that we haven’t seen all year. But they’re real because if you put them on film, you’ve got to own them. And I think that’s where we’re going to have to challenge ourselves maturity-wise to see if we can take a good hard look at ourselves and recognize some of the things that I thought we were doing better and we were getting better at, but we did not do today.
On the decision to go for it on fourth-and-goal…
Let’s score a touchdown. I don’t know there’s anything more. Had they called a false start there, which we probably did false start, and it would have been fourth-and-five, we probably would have had to kick it.
It wasn’t going to be the situation where, outside of probably three right there, that we were going to be willing to go for it. We had to have some momentum, generate some energy, but we got the thing inside the 1-yard line, and there was no doubt we were going.
On Iowa scoring on a similar play to Wisconsin’s failed fourth-and-goal attempt…
We didn’t set an edge. They did a decent job setting an edge, and then they triggered and made the play inside. We were a little bit out of whack, out of sorts. I don’t know that we were all in sync as the ball was snapped, which is on us. But that probably had something to do with us not executing really well.
On the false starts and other mistakes offensively…
No, I don’t even know if that’s the most maddening. The big plays defensively are as maddening as anything.
Those guys did an unbelievable job of working on the cadence and the noise all week. We did it all week for the Penn State game. We did it all week this week. I don’t even know that it was that, because I don’t know that it was like it was two years ago in the night game.
So if there’s four or five of them, we’re not in a position where we’re going to be able to overcome a lot of those things. But I think that’s a little bit more just on us. It wasn’t something that I think those guys didn’t do a great job preparing for. They just did a really bad job at executing that.
On whether Wisconsin’s slow start snowballed throughout the game…
Yeah, I don’t know. Gosh, you get them into third-and-seven or third-and-eight on the very first series, and you’re in a position where this is where you’ve been good. And you give up a big play, and that just is a little bit more uncharacteristic of us.
We’ve been pretty good, and even in those situations, if guys get first downs, they haven’t given up big plays, and they’ve found ways to make the big plays.
And then from there, I think it did continue to snowball a little bit in the sense that maybe we started to get antsy, maybe we started to push, maybe we started to press a little bit because we weren’t able to get to him. We weren’t able to make him uncomfortable in the pocket.
And so what they did most of the day was give him an opportunity to do what he needed to do from a pretty comfortable pocket.
On what he would say to fans concerned about the direction of the program…
Well, I think that we’re a work in progress, and it’s all about getting better. One game doesn’t define you. One moment doesn’t define you. And so I think for us, it’s always been about climbing a mountain. It’s always been about, hey, how are we going to get better? How are we going to continue to push this thing to be where we want to be when it comes to crunch time?
I felt like we’ve been moving that needle in the right direction. I feel like that’s what we’ve got within that locker room, and today was not that. And so it’s very disappointing, and it’s very difficult. But that’s also part of the game. I think if there’s one thing, unfortunately, you do try to learn from others around college football, that you’ve got to come out every single week because anybody can do anything on any given weekend.
We’ve been fortunate enough to maybe experience it but not experience it. And then today we experienced it in a way that doesn’t feel good.
On Wisconsin’s inconsistency from week to week…
Well, I don’t know about that. I don’t know that that’s the same here. We played well enough and put ourselves in a position I think we could have won at UCLA. Here we did not. And that’s a tough, difficult situation. But it’s about growth. It’s about learning. It’s about applying. It’s about growing. And that’s what these guys have got to be able to do.
That’s what they’ve got to recognize. They’ve got to be able to humble themselves a bit, just like all of us, recognize who we are and where we are and what we need to do to be successful. And I think that’s what we will do. And that’s what we’ve got to get back to.
On the offense’s inability to establish the run or get Colton Joseph into a passing rhythm…
I don’t know. We didn’t have a ton of opportunities. It’s tough. They did control the football and have a methodical drive there to start with and even in the second one. But we’ve got to find a way. The opportunities we get, we’ve got to create some things. They’ve always been very good on defense. They play really well. They make you earn everything.
And that’s what we knew coming in here, but we really just did not do a good enough job at it. And so we’re going to take a good hard look at it. We’ve got to take a good hard look at the offense. We’ve got to take a good hard look at defense. We’ve got to take a good hard look at all of our guys because we didn’t perform the way we had performed and the way we had prepared.
On how Wisconsin can respond to the loss after previously bouncing back from UCLA…
Well, it’s not panicking. I think that’s the thing that we all have to be able to do. It hurts, and when you perform like this and you get shut out and you don’t play in any phase of the game well enough to even put yourself in a position to win, you’ve got to humble yourself.
And so you’ve got to go back and make sure that you understand who you are and what you’ve got to be able to do, and you’ve got to make sure the guys stick together because that’s what this game’s all about. Whether you lose by one or you lose by 30, it’s still a loss and it hurts. There’s some things we’ve got to be able to take from this that can hopefully be some positives. I don’t know what they are right now, but we’ve got to be able to grow and we’ve got to be able to rebound and we’ve got to be able to get better.
On whether the quarterback position is an open competition going forward…
No, no, I don’t know. We’ve got to look and see who’s going to give us the best opportunities. I don’t know that anyone did anything specific today that tells us that. I think that to jump to conclusions too soon is not what we need to be able to do. There’s a lot of things we’ve got to take a good hard look at.
We jumbled around the offensive line more today than we ever have, and I don’t know that that’s where we need to be. And so we’ve got to do a hell of a lot better job at figuring out what that combination is going to be and move it forward.
On how many first-team reps the backup quarterback has received…
No, I don’t think he’s gotten many. Now, they do a little bit of that the last few weeks where he is in there some. They shuffle the lines around, so it’s not like you’re not in there with some of those guys. It’s not a wholesale ones and twos, as you see how we roll tight ends, we roll wide receivers, tailbacks the same way.
So he’s worked with those guys. I don’t know that he’s had exclusive reps with the ones, probably since maybe spring. No, and then spring he was at the twos or threes. So not a ton.
On whether the defensive breakdowns were caused more by poor coverage or a lack of pressure…
It’s a combination. It always is. It starts with coverage for us today. I thought that we just did not do a good enough job, did not stay on body, and a lot of those things that we had done a hell of a lot better job of, coupled with, again, I don’t know how many times we even made him go to a second or third read.
Not saying he didn’t, but they were ahead of the sticks on us in a lot of those situations as they got the ball to midfield. And the whole playbook’s open with some reverses and throwbacks and things that when they get you in that position, they’ve got a step ahead of you and you’ve got to find a way to create and make a play so that they can’t stay one step ahead. And that’s what we weren’t able to do.
On what Wisconsin needs to do to close the gap with Iowa…
There’s a lot. Again, we’ve got to look at ourselves. We’ve got to make sure that we understand that this game starts and will always start up front on offensive and defensive lines. And so if I was just off the cuff, I can tell you that they dominated both sides of the line of scrimmage. Without watching the film, I was out there, you guys were out there. They owned the line of scrimmage for the most part for the betterment of 60 minutes today.