Back here on the Cover 3 podcast and what an honor and a privilege it is to be joined by Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickle. Coach, thank you so much for taking some time out of what I'm sure is a little bit of a hectic day. How are you you open camp six days? Are you hungry? Are you ready to get into the season? Boy, I can't get here fast enough. As you get to this point, it's what becomes difficult, right? It's like a kid waiting on Christmas.

As you get to that last week, it's what becomes difficult, right?

It's like a kid waiting on Christmas.

As you get to that last week, it's like, hey, how fast can we get there? In the middle of the summer, everybody's like, I can't wait to the season. You're like, well, stay. We still got some time. But now you get within that week, and it's like, why don't we just start now? So, yeah, we got a lot of things to prove, so we're excited about getting started.

That's for sure.

Yeah, there's been a lot of things to prove, so we're excited about getting started.

That's for sure.

Yeah, there's been a lot of changes for the team over the offseason. You've got a new offensive coordinator coming in. You've got the transfer quarterback in Billy Edwards, who's coming from Maryland. What did you see from Billy Edwards that made you want to bring him to Madison and think that's our guy going forward? Even before I knew him, just looking back at his story in some ways, I love guys that have been through the ups and the downs. I love guys that have had some adversity. I love guys that, I don't want to say failed, but that are aware of what their failures may have been. And to see him and what he's gone through, whether it was, you know, at Wake Forest or whether was was at Maryland and then to get a chance to visit with him and recognize and see his maturity, his humility behind all those things. It just showed me that, hey, this is a guy that's got the leadership's qualities, the skills, the maturity that's going to take to a tackle, you know, to climb this mountain that we know is in front of us.

I was talking to these guys before and I was like, it feels like we could plug in the questions that we asked you last year. Because there's a lot of the same questions coming up. The schedule's really tough, new quarterback, new system. What is that like for you? How challenging is that to have so much turnover in a short period of time? Well, I think that's been the toughest thing with the last two years and going into the third

year, is the quarterback room in general. And I know it's always been, you know, your quarterback, it's always been one of those rooms where, hey, there's got to be a development piece. There's going to have to be some backups and some guys within that room that are going to have to grow and mature. And you never know when you're going to need them. But it's also been the one piece in the last four years that become even the most, even harder to maintain, right? I mean, keeping young guys in your system that they can grow if they aren't playing right away. And so that's been tough. It's the third year now with a one year quarterback, which, you know, is a challenge in itself because going into the season, there's a lot more question marks. And I'm not saying there's question marks, Billy's done a lot, he's played a lot of ball, but just how all those things come together, how all that leadership works and how the mesh of what a team looks like. There's a lot more unknowns as you get rolling here in six days than if you've got somebody that's been there. With you guys not having the success that I'm sure you would like or your fans would like, are you the type that says, all right, we're going to keep doing what I've been doing and had success at other places? Are you trying new things every year? Like, what's your thought process? Well, I think there's still a core value to what we know wins and what can and

will win at the University of Wisconsin. That's why I was brought there. I think the whole connection

with Chris McIntosh and being a former great player and All-American, he knows what this place is

all about and what it was going to take. And we're on the same page. It's just, unfortunately, over two years, I don't know that we had seen the growth and those things that were going to give us the best chance to be successful. And it's easy to point at the offense and to say, well, you know, how do you think you're going to be tough and physical when you're in an air raid offense? And to be honest with you, the idea of any great coach and any great system has the ability to adapt. And what we found out and what we didn't do a good enough job was adapting to what it is that we had to do to be successful. And so that's why some of the changes are made. I think it puts us in a better place to continue to grow and keeps the same core philosophy, but lets you live your life a little bit different. There's been a lot of focus, obviously, on the offense.

But one thing I'm interested in is there's been, like, you look at your defensive line in the portal this year. There's been kind of like a change in the personnel. What are you looking at or what do you like about the guys that you've brought in this year? See, finally, somebody that digs into something deeper than just a quarterback. I mean, we're all cover three, so we know quarterbacks design this, an idea of it's all about the back end, it's all about throwing the football. But if you said, hey, what's the biggest change within your whole entire program? I'd say the defensive front in particular. Last year we had one guy that was 300 plus pounds. And I think right now going to the season, we might have seven, in particular up front, inside a little bit more than anything else. But that's been the biggest difference. And we knew that was an area where we had to get better. We knew that was an area where we had to grow. And it was a way for us to kind of change a lot of things. And we had to do that through the transfer portal. And I think it's been really good for us. Obviously, we'll find out here real soon. You won 76% of your games at Cincinnati. So is there, how has the growth process been for you taking on a little bit of a new challenge in terms of the ups and downs? Is that one of the reasons why you even see that in Billy, you know, when you see that in some players that everyone's trying to get back on that front foot together? Yeah, it is. I mean, everybody likes to say, oh, the game is different and no, the game is not different. And, well, okay, the landscape's, yes, the landscape's different. But developing teams, growing teams, yes, there's some more things that are involved in it,

but it still hasn't changed. It's finding ways to get young men to kind of mesh together,

whether there's a new element of contracts and money within your locker room. It's still the same

thing. How do you find this idea of what complimentary football looks like? And I've said it out there

as I spoke a little bit earlier, complimentary football to us isn't just on Saturday. It's pretty cliche, right, for a coach to get up there and say, that was complimentary football if we had success. The offense, defense, and special teams played off each other. But complimentary football, when you dive down into it, is really a core at the belief of all that you do and how you all work and mesh together from offense,

defense special teams and the culture of all those things. And for me and for us, I think that's

where the biggest change, even more so than the size of the defensive line or the offense.

It comes down to, hey, how do we do everything that we do, whether it's December or January or come August 28th in game one, how do we do everything to do what we need to do to enhance one another, sacrifice for each other to give us the best opportunity as a whole? A lot has been brought up about the schedule. We ranked the toughest schedules in the country this year, and I'm pretty sure we all had Wisconsin to the top five.

Yours is a very difficult slate this year.

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