Luke Fickell Gives Honest Opinion About Wisconsin Academics Affecting Recruitment

Luke Fickell will need to recruit differently at Wisconsin

Newly anointed Wisconsin Badgers head coach Luke Fickell doesn’t have much time to celebrate landing his new job. In the era of the transfer portal and weak recruiting commitments, Fickell needs to find players for the Badgers program next year. Fickell has already talked about his major plans in recruiting. He wants to pluck future Badgers from near Madison.

Days after Fickell left his job with the Cincinnati Bearcats, players in Cincinnati started looking for the transfer portal. Some players could look to Wisconsin if they meet the Badgers’ academic requirements. Wisconsin can be a tough place for head coaches to recruit elite talent because of their academic standards. Those rules ran former Badgers coach Gary Anderson out of the state.

Fickell wants to invest in players

According to Jesse Temple with The Athletic, Fickell spoke about his plans to bring in top talent with Wisconsin’s academic standards during his press conference Monday night:

“We know this is an incredible academic institution, and we’ve got to make sure that we bring guys in that can fit that standard,” Fickell said. “That doesn’t mean you have to shy away. ‘Well, OK, we’ve got to take a guy that’s not quite as fast because of an academic standard.’ No. But we’ve all got to put them in positions where they can thrive and be successful.

“I’m excited to meet the people that are going to work with them because we know that there are guys that you have to take that have challenges. As long as you have the support to help them, they’ve got the heart and the drive to do it, all things can be done. I think that all goes into your assessment of what it is that you believe of a kid.

“You can’t just look at a couple game clips and say, ‘This is the kind of player he is.’ You can’t just look at a transcript and say, ‘OK, well he’s a 2-point whatever student, so he’s not very good. Or he’s a 3.8 student, so he’s really good.’ No.”

Fickell seems to understand that there will be challenges with the school’s standards. He wants to ensure the Badgers recruit players who can fit in with the unique program. However, it’ll be interesting to see how much support the Badgers will be willing to give on this issue. The Badgers have a history of sticking by their standards. They’re not likely to budge on a player that can’t make the grade.