Can the Badgers Climb Off the Floor?

Let’s not sugarcoat it, Badger fans: 2025 was ugly. Wisconsin finished 4–8 (2–7 Big Ten), the third straight losing-or-flat season under Luke Fickell, and the bottom fell out in the middle of it. The 37–0 home shutout to Iowa in October, a fourth straight loss and a fourth straight year handing over the Heartland Trophy, was the kind of afternoon at Camp Randall that makes you turn the TV off early.

Fickell called it “as low as it can be.” For a program that spent two decades as a reliable nine- and ten-win machine, and that didn’t have a single player drafted this spring, that’s rock bottom. So the only question that matters heading into 2026: is there a way up?

What BBMI’s model says

This is where we come in. BBMI has started modeling college football for 2026, and Wisconsin is one of the first teams we’ve run through the system, so here’s the cold read. The model has Wisconsin 67th nationally in its preseason ratings, which slots them 17th out of 18 in the Big Ten, ahead of only Purdue. That’s not where anyone in Madison wants to be, but it’s honest: the offense has to prove it, and the model won’t credit reputation it hasn’t seen on the field yet.

The saving grace is the schedule. Unlike the 2025 gauntlet, Wisconsin dodges Ohio State, Oregon, and Michigan this year. The brutal spots are real: a neutral-site opener with Notre Dame (BBMI: ~10% to win), plus Penn State, USC, and a trip to Iowa. But the back half is stuffed with winnable coin-flips.

Wisconsin dodges Ohio State, Oregon and Michigan this year. The brutal spots are real, but the back half is stuffed with winnable coin-flips.

What the staff actually changed

The good news is that Wisconsin has stopped pretending. The Air Raid experiment (the Phil Longo offense that gutted the Badgers’ identity and dragged a once-punishing run game down to around 109 rushing yards per contest) is dead and buried. Longo was fired back in November 2024, and Jeff Grimes took over the offense for 2025. Year one was rough, but Grimes is back for 2026, and the plan is refreshingly on-brand: classic Wisconsin. Inside zone, wide zone, downhill, play-action off of it. Grimes’ whole identity, as he’s put it, is to hit defenses in the mouth and then make them pay for creeping up. That’s the football Wisconsin was built on, and it’s the football the roster was rebuilt for this offseason.

And it was a real rebuild. Wisconsin worked the transfer portal hard (roughly 33 additions against 23 departures, a class that landed in the top 50 nationally), reloading the offensive line, the backfield (Iowa State’s Abu Sama III, USC’s Bryan Jackson), and the secondary (Ohio State’s Bryce West, Missouri’s Marvin Burks Jr.). Fickell kept his job, but nobody’s hiding the fact that he’s on the hot seat. This is a prove-it year.

A new boss, and the hot-seat math

Here’s the twist that makes 2026 feel even more make-or-break: the man who saved Fickell’s job is already gone. Chris McIntosh, the athletic director who announced in November (with Wisconsin sitting at 2–6) that Fickell would be back for 2026, left in April for a deputy commissioner role at the Big Ten. In his place, Wisconsin hired Shawn Eichorst, named AD on July 1 and introduced days later. He’s a Wisconsin native with a heavy résumé (former AD at Nebraska and Miami, most recently a top deputy at Texas). And, crucially, he did not hire Luke Fickell. He inherited him.

That matters, because new athletic directors tend to want their own coaches. Eichorst’s early public comments on Fickell were warm but pointedly noncommittal: more “let me get to know his program” than “he’s my guy.” “My expectation is more of me than him,” Eichorst said. “I need to pour into him.” Encouraging, sure. A multi-year vote of confidence, no. (Worth remembering: at Nebraska, Eichorst once fired an inherited Bo Pelini.)

So why is Fickell still standing? In large part, the buyout. He signed a seven-year deal worth around $7.8 million a year when Wisconsin pried him from Cincinnati in late 2022, later rolled through 2031–32, though a clause kept his buyout tied to the original terms, and he actually declined a further extension this past February. Firing him after 2025 would have cost about $25 million; firing him after 2026 still runs roughly $19 million. That number, as much as anything, is what bought him this season; analysts have been blunt that in a cheaper era he’d probably already be gone. The math is simple and unforgiving: a new boss with no loyalty to the hire, a buyout that shrinks every year, and a fan base out of patience. In 2026, bowl eligibility isn’t just a nice-to-have. It might be the job.

The quarterback question

Here’s the position that decides Wisconsin’s season, and it’s a completely new picture. 2025 was a QB disaster from the jump: transfer starter Billy Edwards Jr. blew out his knee on a non-contact play in the opener, backup Danny O’Neil got benched, and true freshman Carter Smith was starting by the end. Edwards has since transferred to North Carolina to play for Bill Belichick, so the room is Grimes’ to remake.

The guy to know is Colton Joseph, the expected new starter after transferring in from Old Dominion. He’s the exact archetype this offense wants: a genuine dual-threat who was the Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year, throwing for 2,624 yards and 21 touchdowns while running for over 1,000 yards and 13 scores. If Grimes’ downhill run game gives Joseph a real ground threat to build play-action off of, this offense could look nothing like last year’s. (For the record: Joseph’s a California kid, not a homegrown Badger, but he’s got two years of eligibility and a spring’s worth of reps already built up.) Louisville transfer Deuce Adams, a former top-40 recruit, gives them a legit arm in the backup competition, with Carter Smith back too.

Can RB U get back to being RB U?

Nothing captured the 2025 collapse better than this: Running Back U, the program of Ron Dayne, Melvin Gordon, Jonathan Taylor, Montee Ball and Braelon Allen, had a leading rusher with 363 yards. Read that again. Darrion Dupree paced the team at 363 and two scores, banged up behind an overwhelmed line in a scheme that never fit. That’s not a Wisconsin stat line; that’s the whole problem in a single number.

The room got gutted after the season, too. The back who opened 2025 as RB1, Dilin Jones, transferred to LSU after a turf-toe injury; Cade Yacamelli left for Miami (OH); and prized four-star signee Amari Latimer flipped to West Virginia on Signing Day. Dupree is back, and so is Gideon Ituka, though Fickell has said Ituka may miss all of 2026 after a scary head and neck injury last November.

So the Badgers did what the whole roster did: rebuilt through the portal. The headliner and projected lead back is Abu Sama III, in from Iowa State with nearly 1,900 career yards at 5.6 a pop and exactly the burst-and-bang running this offense wants. Around him: Bryan Jackson, a 235-pound bruiser from USC built for short yardage and the red zone; Nate Palmer, a change-of-pace speed back from TCU; and JUCO product Julius Pope for depth, all under new position coach Jayden Everett. Pair that group with Grimes’ downhill zone scheme and, for the first time in three years, the runners and the blueprint actually match. If any unit is positioned to announce “we’re back,” it’s this one.

The defense: the strength, then the exodus

Here’s the genuinely good news: the defense was the one thing that worked in 2025. Mike Tressel’s group finished 24th nationally in total defense and 15th against the run (legitimately stout), and Tressel is back for a fourth year, rated a top-five play-caller in the Big Ten and the steadiest hand on an otherwise shaky staff.

The catch? Almost all of it walked out the door. Wisconsin returns exactly one of its Week 1 defensive starters, edge Sebastian Cheeks, after seven seniors graduated and a wave of others hit the portal, linebackers Christian Alliegro (to Ohio State) and Tackett Curtis (to UCF) among them. The Badgers were also shut out of the NFL Draft entirely for the first time since 1978: a backhanded blessing that brought some would-be departures back, but a blunt marker of a depleted roster all the same.

The rebuild leans on two things. First, the future is already here at linebacker: Mason Posa (a Freshman All-American) and Cooper Catalano stepped in as true freshmen last October and instantly became one of the most productive young linebacker duos in the country, a real cornerstone. Second, the portal, where Tressel spent his capital fixing the one soft spot, a pass defense that ranked just 62nd: cornerback Javan Robinson (Arizona State), safety Marvin Burks Jr. (Missouri) and former Ohio State blue-chip nickel Bryce West, plus line help in Hammond Russell IV (West Virginia) and Buffalo sack-artist Junior Poyser. On paper, it’s the strength of the team again; the only question is whether ten-plus new starters gel into a unit by September.

The path to a bowl

It’s a soft 5–7, a bowl-eligibility team hiding inside a losing record. The difference is entirely in the margins.

The in-state angle

Now, for the local crowd, and this is a sore spot. Wisconsin’s traditional in-state pipeline has thinned out. The 2026 recruiting class leaned heavily out-of-state, top in-state O-line target Gavin Meier picked Minnesota of all places, and even Joe Brunner (the Whitefish Bay kid who was the No. 1 in-state prospect of his class) hit the portal and left. That stings.

The one homegrown name to root for on the 2026 roster: Jackson Acker, the senior tight end/fullback out of Verona, who’s been a versatile do-everything piece and a genuine Wisconsin-kid holdover in a locker room that’s increasingly imported. If the Badgers are going to get back to their identity, players like Acker are the connective tissue to who they used to be.

But here’s the more encouraging local signal, and it’s about the future: the pipeline may be getting repaired. Wisconsin’s 2027 recruiting class is being built around in-state kids (nine of them and counting), and the headliner is Keaton Wollan, the all-state linebacker from Amery in the northwest corner of the state. He was committed to Iowa State before flipping to the Badgers in May with a two-word announcement every Wisconsin fan wants to hear: “Staying Home!” And he’s the real deal: a first-team all-state pick who put up a video-game junior year (125 tackles, four forced fumbles and three picks on defense, plus 932 rushing yards on offense and an 83-yard kick return). He won’t suit up in Madison until 2027, but landing hometown talent like Wollan (over Iowa State, Texas Tech, and even North Dakota State) is exactly the kind of fence-building that rebuilt Wisconsin the last time it mattered.

The model’s single closest game of the season

BBMI gives Minnesota a razor-thin edge, essentially a pick’em. In the base projection, the Axe stays in Minneapolis another year. But “the closest game of the season” is exactly the kind of rivalry night that laughs at projections.

BBMI is rolling out college football coverage as the season approaches: Wisconsin’s one of the first teams up, and we’ll be running the playoff contenders and blue-bloods next. Model ratings are preseason and update as real games are played.