Cole Tollison

What do you know about Wisconsin’s Offense? Will Pauling is WR1. The OL has a rock-solid top 6. And there is a new Quarterback in Mad Town… again. 

Coaching Changes

Phil Longo is still the OC, but there were 2 major changes to his support staff.  

O-Line

Jack Bicknell Jr. followed Phil Longo to Madison from North Carolina. He was the O-Line coach in 2023 but has been reassigned for the 2024 season. This can be seen as a demotion as far as I’m concerned. 

This means Wisconsin will have its 4th different O-Line coach in 4 seasons. Not exactly the stability of years past. 4th time’s the charm? AJ Blazek hopes so. He was an All-B1G Center playing for Iowa in 2000 and has been a career OL coach ever since. His 2 most recent stops have been with North Dakota State in 2019 and 2020, and Vanderbilt since 2021. Fickell likes his extensive coaching experience, recruiting familiarity in the B1G footprint, and his success at NDSU.

Side note – Leyton Nelson is a Vanderbilt LT transfer following Blazek to Wisconsin. He is injured for now but might be part of Wisconsin’s future plans at the position. 

Wide …

Training Camp is in full swing, but not in Madison. If YOU want to see the Badgers practice, where should you be, and when?

Minimizing Distractions

Luke Fickell made a change to training camp last offseason to “minimize distractions.” He took the team to UW-Platteville for the first week of training camp. The players stayed in the dorms, were served food by the school, and used the University’s facilities for practice and conditioning. 

Fickell was a fan of this “road trip” training camp during his time at Cincinnati. It builds team chemistry and accelerates integrating transfers into the locker room. But most importantly, it minimizes distractions. At an hour and 15 minutes from Madison, the players are sufficiently far enough away from the Madison party scene, their friends, and their girlfriends, that the only thing they can focus on is football.

Last year was considered such a success, the Badgers are doubling down in 2024. Instead of 1 week in Platteville, it’s 15 days this year. They left town on July 29 and won’t be back until August 12. The Badgers have committed to returning to Platteville for training camp for the next 3 seasons, so don’t expect …

How many new players are on the roster in 2024? What’s the positional breakdown of the new guys? Did the Badgers bring in more Freshmen or Transfers?

New Faces in Madison

There are 85 scholarships on an FBS football roster. How many of those 85 weren’t in Madison last year?

There are 2 categories of new guys here: Freshmen, and Transfers.

Let’s start with the ones who are unlikely to play, but are the future of the program: The Freshmen. Wisconsin brought in 22 scholarship freshmen in 2024. That’s pretty close to the pre-transfer portal standard of 25ish new freshmen per year. Wisconsin is sticking to traditional recruiting, even in the portal era. 

The breakdown by position. 

5 – Offensive Lineman
4 – Defensive Backs
3 – Running Backs 
3 – Linebackers
3 – Defensive Lineman
2 – Tight Ends
1 – Wide Receiver
1 – Quarterback

Wisconsin likes to handle the development of Offensive linemen themselves. They brought in 5 freshmen in 2024, and 5 freshmen in 2023. We’ll get to transfers shortly, but you’ll notice they only took one O-Lineman from the portal this year.

Running Back is also a position where the Badgers are quite …

We previewed Wisconsin’s opponents last week, but there are a couple of quirks with this year’s schedule worth talking about.

2 Bye Weeks? 

Question: Why do the Badgers have 2 bye weeks in 2024? 
Answer: Because the season is based on holidays, not calendar dates. 

The Badgers aren’t special in 2024, everyone has 2 bye weeks. 

About every  3 out of 10 years is a double bye week year. The college football season is based on the number of Saturdays from Labor Day to Thanksgiving. Because those holidays can move calendar dates from year to year, the number of Saturdays between them varies from 13 to 14. When there are 13 Saturdays, college football has 1 bye week. When there are 14 Saturdays, there are 2 bye weeks. Now you can sound smart when someone at work asks why the Badgers are off again in November.

Side note: there are teams that play in “week 0” this year too. They get 3 bye weeks. 

Friday Night Lights

If you don’t like B1G football on Friday nights, blame FOX. 

The Badgers have 2 Friday games in 2024

• Week 1 vs Western Michigan on Friday 8/30 at 8:00 PM CST on FS1