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Luke Fickell: Two plays from loss to Minnesota will haunt Wisconsin Badgers

Luke Fickell was happy with how his Wisconsin Badgers defense played in the loss to the Minnesota Golden Gophers, but he thinks two plays in particular will haunt them.
Lorin Cox|
Nov 29, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Wisconsin Badgers head coach Luke Fickell looks on during the first half against the Minnesota Golden Gophers at Huntington Bank Stadium.
Nov 29, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Wisconsin Badgers head coach Luke Fickell looks on during the first half against the Minnesota Golden Gophers at Huntington Bank Stadium. | Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

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Luke Fickell was happy with how his Wisconsin Badgers defense played in the loss to the Minnesota Golden Gophers, but he thinks two plays in particular will haunt them.

They held Minnesota to under 100 yards passing, and largely contained the Gophers ground game. But one big play in each phase of the offense stuck out as blemishes on the performance.

"There'll be two plays that haunt us for, whatever, four hours until we get home and eight hours until we get in tomorrow morning and for quite a while beyond," Fickell said after the game. "But you've got to have the ability to be able to overcome some things like that."

The first play he pointed to was the 49-yard breakaway touchdown run by Minnesota running back Darius Taylor that gave the Gophers a 10-0 lead in the second quarter.

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Safety Austin Brown was playing the pass and late to identify the run. The other safety, Matthew Jung, took a poor angle. Linebacker Mason Posa couldn't fit over his block to get outside in time to redirect the ball-carrier.

"It was a missed [run] fit. It was a miscommunication of a missed fit," Fickell said. "It shouldn't happen to us at that point in time. [It's] one of those things that, at the time, cost us big time."

The other play that will haunt Fickell was a third down pass in the redzone, where quarterback Drake Lindsey connected with tight end Jameson Geers up the seam for a touchdown that looked too easy.

The tight end blew past linebacker Mason Posa, but he got caught up with the referee who got in the way of the freshman turning and running with the receiver.

Deep safety Matthew Jung was also in a tough spot with two vertical receivers coming up the seams.

It was a route concept designed to beat the Cover-3 zone the Badgers were running, and Lindsey read it the whole way.

Related: Studs and duds from Wisconsin Badgers 17-7 loss to Minnesota Golden Gophers

"Outside of that, I think the defense played pretty well," Fickell said. "That's where that complementary football has got to kick in."

The bigger issue overall was Wisconsin's inability to consistently move the ball or score points on offense.

Even with those touchdowns allowed, the Badgers' defense did its job well enough to win the game.

It's the offense that should feel the most haunted by their performance in Minneapolis.

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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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