FOX CFB expert predicts disaster in 2025 for Luke Fickell and Wisconsin Badgers

Joel Klatt is clearly not high on Luke Fickell and the Wisconsin Badgers heading into the 2025 season.

To be frank, Fickell and the Badgers haven't given him, or their own fans, much of a reason to be excited, either.

Fickell has gone just 13-13 in essentially two seasons at Wisconsin (he coached one game in 2022) and he's coming off a 5-7 campaign.

The Badgers have been underwhelming at the quarterback position, which is the most important position at the game. Still, even their traditionally strong running game and defense were disappointing last season. 

Wisconsin's rushing offense was eighth in the Big Ten in 2024 while the Badgers' total defense was ranked 12th in the conference.

The Badgers then went and lost 21 players to the transfer portal.

“The Badgers went 5-7 last year. They lost their last five games, so they snapped a streak of 22-straight winning seasons … They tried to change their identity, and Luke Fickell went in a different direction, both defensively and offensively, than what they had been through the entirety of their recent and successful history," Klatt explained on his show on Monday (h/t On3).

He was doing a segment detailing which school's stock he believes is going up or down heading into 2025.

Wisconsin, in his opinion, is a stock that should have been sold months ago, because it's going down the drain.

Interestingly enough, Klatt doesn't seem to think this is an indictment on the Badgers' head coach, though. That said, he's not expecting much from Wisconsin in 2025.

"I don’t know if they win three games [this year]," Klatt said. "As much as I really like Luke Fickell and think he’s an excellent coach, and I could even make a strong argument that Wisconsin could be a better team this year, it’s not going to show up in the win-loss column.”

Though Klatt is being surprisingly fair to Fickell, there's almost no way the former Cincinnati star head coach survives the season in Madison if the Badgers look to be en route to a 3-9 or worse season.

The thing is, Klatt is right. A terrible season looks possible for the Badgers.

After Miami (Ohio) and Middle Tennessee to kick off the season, Wisconsin plays at Alabama in Week 3, and then it's onto the Big Ten schedule from there.