Luke Fickell says 'toughness' was No. 1 priority in Wisconsin training camp

Luke Fickell wanted to find out how tough his Wisconsin football team really was in training camp and he pushed the Badgers to the limit.

The always no nonsense Fickell excelled during his time at Cincinnati, including leading the Bearcats to the College Football Playoff in 2021. Now in a big spot in Madison, Fickell has the expectations and pressure to deliver and deliver fast in the Big Ten.

Toughness was a great way to start out in camp and if Wisconsin is tough, you better watch out.

“We’ve talked about those things as objectives and the number one objective of training camp: let’s find out where we were in the toughness scale,” Fickell said on Sirius XM’s College Sports Radio. “I’m talking mental, physical and emotional. That’s what I told them from beginning that obviously there’s a lot of things we got to do in training camp.

“There are specific things offensively and defensively. (But I thought) that we need to find out where we really were in the mental toughness spectrum, you know, to be able to push, to be able to continue to grind to get better at those things, you know, to challenge each other.”

Having toughness can give a team an edge. If Wisconsin gets that edge back, there’s no reason not to think the Badgers can’t get back to the Big Ten Championship game and play some big time football.

“But also kind of find where that edge is and a lot of the things that we’re doing because we’re all new to each other, right,” Fickell said. “I mean, I wanted them to make sure they understood that there are some things that we had to really, really push to find out about before we get in front of 84, 85 (thousand people in the stadium), couple million people on TV. 

“So that was kind of the first and foremost thing along with obviously some things offensively and defensively, but I think that was what kind of focused on.”

Fickell is 63-25 overall as a head coach, including two conference titles in the AAC with Cincinnati and the College Football Playoff appearance.

Going into 2023, he might have a very tough team but also one that can score a lot of points. Sure, there’s toughness on the ground with running back Braelon Allen but quarterback Tanner Mordecai can sling it in offensive coordinator Phil Longo’s offense.

Will toughness be the difference in Fickell’s first season at Wisconsin? It seems like he has the blueprint to do it.