Luke Fickell admits Wisconsin got humbled a bit in Week 2

The Luke Fickell era at Wisconsin suffered it first setback last Saturday when the Badgers fell on the road to Washington State. Wisconsin, ranked in the top 20 at the time, was down only two points heading into the fourth quarter. But the Cougars shut them up as they pulled out a 31-22 victory.

Reflecting on the loss during his Monday press conference, Fickell admitted his team was humbled by loss in Pullman, Wash.

“As poor as we may have played, we still had that opportunity with like maybe 6:30 to go in the game with the ball with a chance to go ahead and maybe win a football game,” Fickell said. “We kind of fell back into some of the things that we’ve talked about not being able to finish. I think that’s the probably the biggest takeaway from the entire game. This game is humbling so we got humbled a bit in that way.”

Quarterback Tanner Mordecei was solid with 278 yards on 25-for-40 passing with a touchdown but the team fumbled the ball three times during the game. Mordecei had two of those fumbles, including one in the end zone for a Washington State touchdown.

The Badgers had opened their season with a 38-17 victory over Buffalo and now have to recover with a game versus Georgia Southern.

“But we’re excited about moving forward because there is no time to rest and relax,” Fickell said. “Reality is you’ve got a 2-0 Georgia Southern team that knocked off Nebraska last year at home. Hopefully that is a great awareness to all of us. Kind of like you look around college football, it’s just the realities behind it. If you don’t come to play, you don’t play your best, then there’s an opportunity for everybody every week and so it’s a great challenge for us.”

There’s plenty to improve upon from the Washington State game as well. While the team did have a better showing in the second half after being down 24-9, Wisconsin didn’t put it all together to play a brand of football that leads to wins.

“I thought we came out the second half, we found out a little bit more about ourselves, we obviously did not play very well in the first half in a lot of situations, complimentary football was not a strong suit in the first half,” Fickell said. “The second half we came out, I thought we played complimentary football, offense, defense, special teams did some things really well, but you know, we’ve got to find a way to finish.”