With Chris McIntosh Gone, Luke Fickell is Fresh out of Advocates in Madison

In a seismic announcement Sunday night, Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh announced he will step down and join the Big Ten conference as Deputy Commissioner for Strategy.

The news was first reported by the Wisconsin State Journal's Todd Milewski, and later confirmed by McIntosh himself.

McIntosh, a former All-American tackle at Wisconsin in the late 1990s, was the athletic director since 2021. Now, he'll move into a newly created role where he's set to "lead overall strategy development for the conference," according to a statement.

This move has implications for all 23 varsity sports programs at Wisconsin, but perhaps none more consequential than football.

Here's my take on what McIntosh's departure means for Luke Fickell and the Wisconsin football program:

Who Has Fickell's Back Now?

Luke Fickell, Chris McIntosh. | Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

The head coach's leash was already extremely short after a dismal 4-8 campaign that dropped him to 17-21 all-time in Madison. Wisconsin fans and boosters were already growing impatient before the disaster of the 2025 season, and how it unfolded — with multiple embarrassing, non-competitive losses — cranked up the temperature on Fickell's already rapidly warming seat.

There's a good argument to be made that McIntosh is the only reason Fickell is still in Madison. When he publicly supported the coach following a laughable home loss to Maryland to open Big Ten play, it became clear that he wasn't planning on firing him. And when he later publicly pledged more financial support for the program, it was crystal clear: Fickell wasn't going to be the scapegoat for the worst Wisconsin football season since 1992.

It was going to be obscenely expensive to fire Fickell last season given his enormous buyout, and with jobs like Florida, LSU and Auburn open in the coaching carousel, Wisconsin's chances at landing a top candidate were slim to none.

But McIntosh also knew that firing Fickell would be a bad look, given how he brought him in after somewhat shockingly axing Paul Chryst about a year into his tenure. McIntosh and Fickell's fates were tied, and now, that's no longer the case.

A poor showing in 2026 likely would've been the nail in Fickell's coffin regardless, but now, the head coach is fresh out of advocates in Madison.

The 2026 Football Season Just Got Even More Crucial

2026 just got even more important for Wisconsin football. | Ross Harried-Imagn Images

With the man who hired him — and arguably his biggest supporter — skipping town, Fickell's performance in the 2026 season will determine not just his fate in Madison; it'll set the table for how the football program operates in years to come.

Wisconsin's new athletic director will inherit a football team in its worst shape since the early '90s. The program had certainly sprung a few leaks under Chryst, but it's unquestionably in a worse spot since he was fired three-plus seasons ago.

The new athletic director, with potentially zero personal or professional ties to Fickell, should have no loyalty to the embattled coach. However the Badgers perform on the field in 2026 will give the new athletic director one of two options:

Option A: Wisconsin improves, even if only marginally. The fanbase is satiated a bit, and there's a renewed hope that Fickell will work out with the Badgers. The new athletic director keeps him, gives him some benefit of the doubt, and the football program remains largely business as usual, without big changes to promoting, fundraising and recruiting.

Option B: You-know-what hits the fan in 2026, and the team performs as bad or worse as it did in 2025. This would open the door for the new athletic director to completely clean house. Fickell would be gone, but so would many of the department's strategies that he and McIntosh collaborated on. The regime would change, but so would the fundamental way the football program handles business.

McIntosh's brief tenure was framed by the explosion of the transfer portal, NIL and revenue sharing. If Wisconsin football can turn it around this fall, there'll be hope that his vision for Fickell and what he can bring to the table in the modern era is still achievable. If it's another dreadful season, McIntosh's legacy will be severely tarnished and everything he built will likely be torn down.