Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell on Ohio State matchup: 'It's not about me'

COLUMBUS — Before Luke Fickell returned to the Big Ten to usher Wisconsin back to relevance, and before he built Cincinnati into the first Group of Five College Football Playoff team, he was at Ohio State.

For a decade and a half.

Unlike most young coaches who have to bounce around from school to school to climb the ranks, Fickell had the privilege of sticking around his alma mater and coaching alongside college football Hall of Famers.

It actually all started in 1993-96 when Fickell played nose guard for John Cooper, Ohio State’s head coach at the time. Then, after serving as a graduate assistant under Cooper in 1999 — and then coaching the Akron defensive line from 2000-01 — he was hired by Jim Tressel in 2002 to coach the Buckeyes’ special teams.

Over the next 15 years, Fickell held a variety of roles at Ohio State. He was the Buckeyes’ co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach from 2005-10 and then 2012-16 under Urban Meyer. In between, during the 2011 season, he replaced Tressel as Ohio State’s head coach, albeit with the interim tag — a tag he held for about seven months. Under Fickell — and amid the fallout of “Tattoo-Gate” — the Buckeyes suffered the program’s only losing season in the last 34 years.

But Fickell said during Big Ten Media Days this summer that his interim head coaching experience at Ohio State, and the failures that came with it, have helped shape him into the coach he is today.

Fickell will get a chance to face the Buckeyes Saturday, like he did while he was at Cincinnati. He spoke to the media about the primetime matchup in Madison in his weekly press conference.

Lettermen Row rounded up his answers that are relevant to Ohio State.

Did you learn anything from your experience coaching against Ohio State when you were at Cincinnati?

FICKELL: “We didn’t do well. We went to Columbus and played when I was at Akron as well. We didn’t do well. There’s different things you learn from all of that. The first thing to start off with is it’s not about me. I know we have some guys on our staff, myself included, that have some obvious history there, whether they went to school there or played there. But that’s not what it’s about. And for me, I don’t want to get too much into it. But that’ll be something that’s always stuck in the back of my head.

“I’ve been asked, ‘Hey, can you do a report or do an interview with a guy you know from Columbus or, ‘Hey, the Big Ten Network…’ and I’m like, ‘No, let’s put a player on.’ It’s about the players, it’s about our team, it’s about our program. It’s about the journey that we’re on and the process that we’re in, not the specifics of, ‘Hey, you went to school there. Hey, you played there. Hey, you got guys from your staff from there.’ When the ball’s kicked off, that’ll have absolutely no effect on anything that happens on that field. And so we try to just focus on the things that are going to have the greatest effect on Saturday night.”

What do you think made you successful as a player at Ohio State, and what do you think you learned about yourself as a player there that you’ve carried with you?

FICKELL: “Who said I was successful as a player? … There was a lot of really good players around me, and it made me realize that, in this sport in particular, if you don’t have great people around you, you’re going to struggle. And if you’re average, and you got really good players around you, find your role, do your role and do it to the best of your ability, and you will help not just yourself but your team as well. And I think, for me, as a player playing this game, regardless of where you play at, if it comes really easy for you, and you’re always the best, you learn some things, but I don’t think you learn as much. And just like last week, in times of I’d say chaos or stress or when you’re in a position where it’s not in your favor, I would say it’s kind of the way I was as a college football player — maybe not the biggest, the fastest, the strongest, but you find ways to battle through struggles. And you really figure out if this is something that you’re passionate about. And whether it’s the game, whether it’s the competition, whether it’s finding a way to be better than somebody that’s more talented than you. So there’s a lot of things that we all figure out from playing this game, especially playing this game at a level like this in the Big Ten.

“I don’t know that I would be any different than anybody else. Jack Bicknell played at Boston College, and there’s a lot of things I’m sure he learned as an undersized offensive lineman and center playing that he takes on that helps him to be a better coach today. … Again, there’s an expectation. I think when I left there, as a player and as a coach, I felt like no matter where I went, the difference was in expectation. And sometimes you make yourself better just because of the expectations that are around you that you have to raise your level.

“And so two years ago, I think we had a motto at Cincinnati, ‘high tides rise all ships,’ and it was more so of that trying to get to that mentality of, ‘Hey, when you start to have those things, there’s some pressure and there’s some stress on it, but it makes everything around you better.’ So outside of maybe what others learned from their experiences, being at a place that was pretty successful — not being a good player or anything, being on a program that’s successful — I think you learn a lot.”

After the way last year’s game went, what’s the message being sent about what opportunity Wisconsin has this time versus Ohio State?

FICKELL: “Closing the gap. I think that we’re always looking for those gaps in whatever it is, whether you’re an individual, you’re a team, you’re an offense. You’re always trying to close the gaps. If you’re the guy at the very top, then you’re trying to make sure you don’t allow them to close the gaps. And so we can look back at last year as last year. And, like I said, once the ball’s kicked off, it’ll have not a whole lot of bearing, hopefully, other than things that happened within your mind. But you gotta find ways to close the gaps. And if we don’t use what happened last year as a learning lesson, whether we were here or not, then we wouldn’t be doing our job as coaches and as players as well. So find the ways to continue to close the gaps. There’s gaps in everything, right? Every week there’s a gap in something. Whether they’ve got better this than you, or you’ve got better that.

“So I think, for anything, you can really measure yourself and find out where you are as an individual and as a program and as a team. But we gotta continue to close gaps. The best teams don’t always win games, right? The most talented teams don’t always win games. I mean flip on college football every Saturday. It’s crazy how things happen. So regardless of what that is, it’s about the preparation. It’s about figuring out where you got to close some gaps. And then ultimately can you play loose? Can you play fast? And can you still play aggressive no matter who it is you’re playing against?”

What are your impressions of this year’s Ohio State team so far?

FICKELL: “They’re a team. I think that they find ways, whatever they have to do, to be successful. I mean, again, they’ve got a young quarterback, they’ve got a first-year starter. I haven’t completely followed them the last four or five years, but I know they’ve had a couple first-round draft picks at quarterback, and obviously that can make things a little bit different. So I’m sure that right now they’re playing a little bit more to their strengths. And with a younger quarterback, they probably aren’t doing quite as much. Does that mean you’re relying upon your defense? Maybe you are. Maybe they are.

“I think they’re more talented than maybe four or five years ago, even when we played them. But I think nonetheless, you see the complete team, you see them be able to play together: offense, defense and special teams, regardless of if they got a first-round draft pick quarterback right now and they’re scoring 55 points a game. It’s ultimately about winning, and you can see it, whether it’s if you watch the offense or the defense or even the special teams.”