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Early 2025 win total projection for Wisconsin Badgers has Luke Fickell finishing under .500 again

Oddsmakers put out their early projected win totals for the Power 4 college football teams, and the Wisconsin Badgers are expected to finish under .500 for the second-straight year under Luke Fickell.
Lorin Cox|
Nov 16, 2024; Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Wisconsin Badgers head coach Luke Fickell looks on during the first quarter against the Oregon Ducks at Camp Randall Stadium.
Nov 16, 2024; Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Wisconsin Badgers head coach Luke Fickell looks on during the first quarter against the Oregon Ducks at Camp Randall Stadium. | Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

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Wisconsin Badgers

The Wisconsin Badgers' 5-7 record in 2024 was the first time the team finished under .500 since 2001.

It's supposed to be an anomaly in the Luke Fickell era, a temporary bump in the road.

But the early win total projections for UW has the program failing to earn more wins than losses again in 2025.

FanDuel Sportsbook set odds for every Power 4 team's win/loss record this year, and they have Wisconsin at over/under 5.5 wins for 2025.

If you want to be generous and round that up to six, that still only puts them at exactly .500, not above.

The money appears to be coming in on the under for that total, though, with the betting odds there at -144 compared to +118 on the over, as of May 9.

Much of the blame belongs on a brutal schedule that features some of the best teams in the Big Ten and the Power 4 conferences.

The Badgers haven't had back-to-back seasons below .500 since 1991 and 1992, when Barry Alvarez went 5-6 in his second and third seasons at the helm.

Alvarez followed up that stretch by going 10-1-1 in 1993 on his way to a Rose Bowl victory, so maybe it could be an omen for a similar turnaround for Fickell.

The real questions is whether he'd still be around to coach in 2026.

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Lorin Cox
LORIN COX

Lorin Cox is the managing editor of Wisconsin Badgers on SI. He has been covering Badgers sports since 2014, when he was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. He previously wrote for the Wisconsin State Journal, NBC Sports Chicago and USA Today Sports Media Group, and he is a former analyst for Pro Football Focus.

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