Josh Pate: If Wisconsin fires Luke Fickell, 'he'll be in high demand'
Josh Pate defends Luke Fickell despite his struggles at Wisconsin, arguing he simply got too far down a dead-end road with staff decisions and quarterback injuries. He notes Wisconsin's favorable schedule could save Fickell's job this year.
Video Transcript
So Luke Fickle has had the worst quarterback injury luck of any major head coach over the last few years.
Luke Fickle did not do himself any favors with how he filled out his offensive staff when he first got there a few years ago.
That's ancient history, can't do anything about that now.
He's tried to rectify it since then.
Here's what I'm trying to tell you.
Unlike some of these other guys, if Luke Fickle gets fired this year, and I were North Carolina or someone like that, I'd go after Luke Fickle in a second, because Luke Fickle's not a bad football coach.
He got down the wrong road too far.
You know, sometimes I look at these situations where maybe you turn down a dead-end road and you just don't have enough gas to get back to the main road.
But if I could just get this car back to the main road and fill it up a little bit, it'd be fine.
It'd run fine.
Luke Fickle, all I'm trying to wait and see is did he get down that dead-end road too far?
And if so, and if he gets fired, Luke Fickle would be in high demand.
Like Pate State has an opening, I would very aggressively go after Luke Fickle.
But I don't know that's how it ends up this year.
You got their schedule, Jesse, by chance?
The Wisconsin schedule, I didn't ask for it, but hopefully it's just in the system.
I think they may be okay this year.
They open it against Notre Dame in Lambeau.
So I would guess they lose that game and then they're off everyone's radar for a couple of weeks.
They play Western Illinois and Eastern Michigan, and then the next time you see them would be at Penn State week four.
Now, I'm gonna tell you right now, Jesse's people have penciled that in as a W. And the only W you should be penciling in is the Wisconsin logo, because there's nothing given about that day.
You need to be careful.
You need to be careful.
All I'm saying is they do not play Ohio State.
They do not play Michigan.
I'm having to scan it in real time.
They do not play Indiana.
They do not play Oregon.
Check me on that, but I think that's accurate.
It's a far cry from this time last year when we did the strength of schedule rankings, which Rhett Lashley is a huge fan of, preseason strength of schedule rankings.
And, Wisconsin was like a run, runaway number one without a close number two in the Big Ten.
Things have changed.
I think, I think Luke Fickle's gonna be okay
