All Badgers

Luke Fickell thinks older, more experienced roster will help Wisconsin Badgers take step forward

Luke Fickell was intentional about adding older, more experienced players in the transfer portal to help the Wisconsin Badgers catch up to other Big Ten teams.
Lorin Cox|
Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell is shown during spring football practice Wednesday, April 23, 2025 in Madison, Wisconsin
Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell is shown during spring football practice Wednesday, April 23, 2025 in Madison, Wisconsin | Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

In this story:

Wisconsin Badgers

One of the biggest changes the Wisconsin Badgers made this offseason was more subtle than the rest.

Everyone paid a lot of attention to a new quarterback and offensive coordinator coming in, but Luke Fickell was overseeing a broader transition throughout the winter.

He wanted his roster to get older and more experienced, and he feels like his team has made good progress.

"I think one of the big things we look at in our program is: the last two years we’ve played with 70% of our guys in their first two years," Fickell told The Jim Rome Show last week. "We recognize how much older teams are getting, which is why the teams are so much better. We’ve got to continue to get older."

He pointed to the high school recruits they've been able to keep in the program, plus more than a dozen additions in the transfer portal that brought some experience his roster had been lacking.

Those moves also included some added size to the defensive line, to help bolster a run defense that struggled in 2024.

Look no further than Tulane transfer Parker Petersen. The redshirt senior nose tackle comes in at 6-foot-4, 315 pounds with the bulk and experience Fickell was looking for.

Those older players can help mentor the younger guys still developing on the roster and keep the pipeline churning out quality players across the team.

More Wisconsin Badgers News:

Published
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.

Home/Football