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Wisconsin Badgers coach Luke Fickell has had a reinvigorating off-season, but major questions remain about whether he's the right guy to lead the team back to national prominence.
With the hot seat still prevalent regarding Fickell's job security come November, the slate has since been wiped clean as the focus shifts to the opener against Notre Dame this upcoming Sunday at Lambeau Field. Despite the Badgers being a heavy underdog entering the opener, Fickell said he and his team are still working out critical kinks from fall camp.
"So I don't know that there's one thing that I could say, hey, this spot has grown [from] what we were, much different from the end of spring football to where we are right now," Fickell told reporters. "But I would say the biggest thing is the balance. I said that from the get-go. The thing I feel like we've got is that there's a different nature to, you know, that complementary football and the balance to what it is that we do offensively, defensively, but even so within the entire program with the leadership."
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Beginning the week, Fickell said he was brutally honest about where his team is health-wise during his press availability.
"We know this is a huge game in week one," Fickell said. "To kick it off, we're kicking off in Lambeau against Notre Dame, but we also understand there's a journey here. And so, you know, there's a part of this thing that we've got to make sure that as we get closer towards game time, we do the things that are going to be best for us for this entire journey. And so there aren't decisions made completely on a lot of guys just yet, and we'll have to figure that thing out as we get closer to game day."
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Fickell recently praised quarterback Colton Joseph, who has started to get noticed by anonymous Big Ten coaches ahead of a potentially big season for the soon-to-be redshirt junior.
"When it comes to Joseph's game, there isn't much the 6-foot-2 QB can't do, " the unnamed Big Ten coach told ESPN. "He played way better than I thought he would play.
The Badgers draw other potentially tricky matchups against the Penn State Nittany Lions (Sept. 26), UCLA Bruins (Oct. 17) and USC Trojans (Oct. 24). Winning six or seven games should be stable enough with the schedule it has entering the season, but we'll see how Fickell's team responds immediately in Week 1, win or lose.
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