Luke Fickell Could be Faced With a Crucial Decision Before Wisconsin Football's Season Even Begins

For all of the legitimate optimism swirling around Wisconsin football, there's also some legitimate concern that's boiling over after fall camp. That concern can be localized to a specific area: the right side of the Badgers' offensive line.

Starting tackle Kevin Heywood and starting guard Emerson Mandell essentially both missed the entirety of fall camp. Each was present at practice, but they worked off to the side and remained absent from any and all drills.

Heywood is nursing a right lower leg injury, while Mandell is still recovering from foot surgery he underwent in the spring. The only thing we know at the moment is that Wisconsin expects both players back at some point.

The Badgers have yet to concede that either injury is serious. And if Wisconsin had the ramp-up it has the previous two seasons under Luke Fickell, getting to open the season against a MAC team and an FCS team in the first two weeks, this might be a less pressing matter. But this year, Wisconsin plays the best team it'll see all year immediately.

No. 4 Notre Dame at Lambeau Field under the lights on national television isn't the time to experiment with your starting offensive line. But the Badgers may not have a choice.

Wisconsin has replaced Mandell and Heywood with a combination of Stylz Blackmon and Blake Cherry at guard and Lucas Simmons-Johansson at tackle. All have promise, undoubtably, but that's still just a few dozen combined Power Four snaps plus a D-II transfer. Oh, and Notre Dame boasts one of the best defensive fronts in the sport.

Fickell's potential big decision

Wisconsin's Kevin Heywood. | Christian Borman

Just like they were all of fall camp, Heywood and Mandell were held out for the team's scrimmage on Aug. 23. Speaking to reporters after the fact, Fickell implied that both linemen would've played if it was up to them.

"If you gave them an opportunity to get out here today and go live, I guarantee you both of those guys would’ve said ‘I’m going,’” he said.

That's obviously the right call; both players are penciled in as starters and Fickell and his staff don't need to see much more from them in a live setting. Not to say those reps wouldn't be valuable, but it's better to save them from themselves than take any risk at this juncture.

That decision is much easier to make ahead of a preseason scrimmage, however. A chance to knock off a top-five team in the country to open the season is a different story.

Of course, a lot of this decision could simply rest on the medical availability of both players. But if one or both of them is technically cleared to play despite not being 100 percent, Fickell would be faced with a decision of enormous magnitude.

Does he play his starters in an effort to knock off a national title contender, risking longer-term injury that could derail the season even further? Or does he play it safe, deploying backups against Notre Dame and potentially significantly hindering the Badgers' chance at victory?

Whatever Wisconsin decides could have a domino effect on the rest of the entire season. It better choose wisely.

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