I’m such a delusional Wisconsin Badgers football fan. Every season begins with the belief that we will go undefeated and that first loss of the season always hits hard. The 2024 season was particularly tough for me.
As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, I was an undergraduate at UW-Madison in the mid-2010s. I saw the team win three Big Ten - West division titles from the student section while watching records be broken and hearing the buzz about potential Heisman athletes on the team. Soaking in the entire college football experience for the first time while rooting for a team full of stars had me hooked. 2013 was my freshman year, highlighted by Melvin Gordon and Jared Abbrederis touchdowns. The Badgers went 9-3 during the regular season; all losses were within a score, including away at Ohio State. I knew this was a team that could go to the Rose Bowl again and win!
If I had known then how much the next decade of support would test me, maybe I would have followed the volleyball team instead.
The Good Ol’ Days 🔗
Over the next four years, the football team continued to give me hope. Highlights included watching Melvin Gordon break the NCAA single-game rushing record, a win against LSU at Lambeau Field, and bowl game wins against top teams. We would get dangerously close to winning it all.
Gary Andersen gave way to Paul Chryst as head coach during this time, but the team had a consistent identity. We ran the football, played stout defense, and would rarely have an explosive play on offense. This made the big plays even more exciting; they seemed to come out of nowhere. Players remained at Wisconsin for many seasons, NFL draft picks were relatively rare, and only one or two players went in the first round. On offense, the O-Line and running backs were the stars, and it was the linebackers on defense. Despite this boring, “classic Big Ten football” play style, the Badgers could win against top teams.
One of the biggest goals of the season was to win against Ohio State. Nearly every game I watched over this time was close between Wisconsin and Ohio State, but we could never best the Buckeyes. This should have been an early sign of fan frustration to follow.
Changing Tides 🔗
Something was changing at the core of college football. In 2014, the College Football Playoff was first introduced. All eyes were on the top four teams, and the coveted Rose Bowl became a rotating semifinal game for the new College Football Championship. The Rose Bowl had previously been the post-season matchup between the winner of the Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences. This top prize for a Badger fan was replaced with the much more competitive College Football Championship. The Badger football team I knew wouldn’t be a betting favorite, but they were surely capable of making it.
In 2017 - my senior year - the team went undefeated in the regular season. They were set to play a 2-loss Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship game. A win would cement our place in the playoffs; a loss and we would still be in consideration as a 1-loss Power Five team. After a hard-fought, close game, the Badgers lost and were not selected for the playoffs. This is the closest we’ve come to the ultimate prize since it was introduced.
Things have slipped further away for Wisconsin as the game has continued to change. In 2018, the NCAA Transfer Portal was introduced, and in 2021, NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) money made it possible for student-athletes to receive money. These changes - and others I will discuss - have been difficult for the Badgers to adapt to.
Keeping Up 🔗
After graduating and moving out of the Midwest, I continued to follow the Badgers. I watched games among other alumni at Badger bars, went to a bowl game at Chase Field, and listened to many radio broadcasts.
The 2019 season saw the Badgers return to the Rose Bowl and lose a close contest to Oregon, I was very excited to see what would happen with the team in 2020. We all know what happened next, but the impact on Badger football was a non-season with several canceled games and modified rules. I still listened to Badger Radio; the nostalgia of my college game days was an antidote to Covid blues. Mike Lucas and Matt Lepay were a vital part of my pandemic survival. The iconic commentators are staunch supporters, full of excitement and bias. There was so much skew on radio that I was actually surprised at how bad the team looked as I watched them struggle against Army from the bleachers of Camp Randall.
Something seemed different with the team coming back in that 2021 season. They started 1-3 but recovered in the remaining games to finish an 8-4 regular season. Hope started to slip for the Badgers contending for the top prize. The team was barely bowl-eligible in 2022, and the athletic department was picking up on this decline. They saw an opportunity to transform and adapt to the new state of college football and fired their head coach. Enticed by his Cinderalla run to the College Football Playoffs, Wisconsin brought in Luke Fickell to replace Paul Chryst.
I was in attendance for the first game he coached - the Guaranteed Rate Bowl in Phoenix. The team looked better than they had the rest of the season and beat Oklahoma State comfortably. Fickell even ran some plays I wasn’t used to seeing from a Wisconsin head coach. I was optimistic for what was in store for next season.
Luke Flukell 🔗
I moved back to the Midwest in 2023 and was able to watch more Badger football on television. After seeing how the new offense looked, I longed for the skew radio’s medium allowed, but my optimism persisted longer than many other fans. Fickell made many changes to the team, preferring explosive pass plays on offense and having to staff a coaching group without the fan-favorite Jim Leonhard. His 2023 season saw the Badgers finish with even fewer wins than 2022 - making only the required 6 wins to get a bowl game. As with any change of this size, I knew it would take some time for Fickell’s plan to come together. Players brought in from Fickell’s prior program had a year to develop, and the team had time to learn the new strategies.
Unfortunately, college football changed in another big way in 2024 - the Pac-12 dissolved. Top programs were now part of the Big Ten, including Oregon and USC. 2024 would be one of the toughest schedules Wisconsin has ever played, including Alabama, USC, Penn State, and Oregon. No one would fault Fickell for losing to these dynasties. After a 2-2 start which included the loss of their starting quarterback and giving up a three-score halftime lead, things weren’t looking good. I attended the fifth game of the season against Purdue - a potential turning point for the season. This game is where all of the wonderful pictures in this post are from (:
Including the Purdue matchup, the Badgers went on to win the next three games in a fashion I hadn’t thought they were capable of. Big pass plays, trick plays, 4th down conversions, and a strong run game made the team look like the complete package against lesser opponents. Unfortunately, after this short winning streak it all turned for the worse. They lost every other game of the season, finishing without being bowl-eligible (5-7) for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. An era of contending with the best teams and giving fans hope for the ultimate prize seemed to be over.
Jump Around 🔗
I traveled to my brother’s alma mater, Iowa, to watch the Badgers get embarrassed during this losing streak. Ironically, Iowa is the team Wisconsin could have been if they had stayed the course instead of switching things up with Fickell. Iowa plays a run-heavy offense and lockdown defense. The battle for the Heartland Trophy (Wisconsin vs Iowa) used to feel a matchup between the Badgers offense and their own defense. Iowa beat Wisconsin 42-10, the final nail in the coffin for many fans’ opinion on the Fickell era.
To make matters worse, it downpoured during that game; I was freezing and soaked, but I still loved watching my team. In fact, traveling to every Big Ten stadium to watch the Badgers is now on my bucket list. College football is a beautiful thing. The music, the fans, the traditions, and the rivalries are unlike anything else American sports has to offer. When I watch or listen to my team, I’m reminded of Lepay’s voice in my headphones keeping me company during the loneliness of the pandemic. I remember the camaraderie at the sports bar in Phoenix where a community was formed to root for our team. A game day in Madison as an undergrad is something out of a movie. Jump Around gets my heart pumping whenever I hear it. We may never make it to the College Football Championship, but at the start of every season, I’ll still be thinking there is a chance. That first loss will always be bitter, but without it, the wins wouldn’t be nearly as sweet. The best part of being a fan isn’t watching my team win; it’s watching them surprise me, especially when they surprise me in ways I always hoped they would.
Further Reading 🔗
As Google was watching me research for this, they identified a YouTube video they thought I might like. It sums up some of the broader themes in College Football in 2024 that I only touched on in the post.