MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell was preparing his team to play Purdue a day after Boilermakers coach Ryan Walters fired his offensive coordinator four games into the season. Although Fickell said at the time that he didn’t want to speculate on what happened at another program, he did offer one nugget about his feelings: “I think it’s a bad part of our game.”
Seven weeks later, Fickell explained his decision to do the same thing amid an ongoing season. On Sunday, Fickell fired offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Phil Longo 23 games into his tenure following a 16-13 loss to No. 1 Oregon in which the Badgers averaged a season-low 3.6 yards per play. The move came with two regular season games remaining, beginning Saturday at Nebraska and culminating at home against Minnesota.
“This is never something I ever, ever envisioned doing or wanted to do and especially doing it when there are still games to be played in a season,” Fickell said. “But I felt like for all involved and most importantly for our program and the kids in that locker room, what we needed to do right now was to move forward.
“That’s a very tough thing. It’s an unusual situation that everybody is going to have to be able to handle.”
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Fickell arrived for his weekly news conference intent on shifting the conversation to Wisconsin’s game against Nebraska, where bowl eligibility for both 5-5 teams is on the line. However, given the magnitude of Fickell’s decision and the uncertainty of the offense’s future, his hope to change gears did not materialize. He seemed to grow more frustrated with the line of questioning as his 18-minute session progressed.
Fickell declined to address specifics about who would call plays for the remainder of the regular season during one of his testiest exchanges when he asked: “Why does it matter?” Fickell then said it would be a collaborative effort and he didn’t want to give people “the ability to point a finger at somebody.” He later said it was part of his philosophy not to make a big deal of the play caller, citing his time as co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State when he called plays but never publicly discussed it despite being repeatedly asked.
A source with knowledge of the situation told The Athletic tight ends coach Nate Letton will call the plays for the remainder of the regular season. Letton worked on Fickell’s staff at Cincinnati in 2022 and joined Wisconsin’s program initially as a quality control coach in January 2023. He took over as the tight ends coach a month later after Gino Guidugli left to become the quarterbacks coach at Notre Dame.
Longo also was responsible for coaching the quarterbacks and signaling plays from the sideline. The source said wide receivers coach Kenny Guiton likely will help signal plays and there is the potential for more huddling between plays to avoid confusion at the line of scrimmage.
Fickell said Guiton would “be a guy that’s kind of running” the quarterback room and that the quarterbacks and wide receivers would work together. Guiton was a quarterback for Ohio State when Fickell coached there. Guiton also was the interim offensive coordinator at Arkansas for the final four games last season. Fickell said he took into consideration that his staff does not have an experienced play caller and noted of his team, “it only matters what those guys in that room believe and will go out and do.”
“Getting prepared for Nebraska is the thing that’s on our mind … We got a job to do and that’s to finish this thing, especially for the seniors.”@CoachFick meets with the media ahead of Saturday’s matchup at Nebraska.
Full presser: https://t.co/26W089XFtR pic.twitter.com/f4vH6KKQ0p
— Wisconsin Football (@BadgerFootball) November 18, 2024
While the timing of Longo’s firing may come as a surprise, Fickell’s decision to move on certainly wasn’t considering the offense seemed disjointed and was nowhere near good enough in two seasons. In six previous seasons as an FBS offensive coordinator at Ole Miss and North Carolina, Longo’s teams never scored fewer than 32.8 points per game or ranked worse than 33rd nationally in scoring offense. His Wisconsin teams never sniffed those marks as he transitioned away from the Badgers’ long-time pro-style system to his variation of the Air Raid.
Wisconsin ranks 57th in rushing offense (169.3 yards), 91st in total offense (363.1 yards), tied for 97th in scoring offense (23.9 points per game) and 102nd in passing offense (193.8 yards) in the FBS. The Badgers are averaging 5.37 yards per play.
For perspective, consider those marks are worse in every category other than passing offense to Wisconsin’s team two seasons ago, during which time coach Paul Chryst was fired and first-time offensive coordinator Bobby Engram was calling the plays.
Longo was hampered, in part, by the fact that backup quarterback Braedyn Locke started or played meaningful snaps in 12 of Longo’s 23 games because of injuries to the starter. Locke’s career completion rate is 53.1 percent, and Wisconsin is 4-6 in his 10 career starts, with losses in three straight games. He has thrown at least one interception in all seven of his starts this season. Fickell said Locke’s performance didn’t significantly factor into deciding Longo’s fate. He said Locke will continue to be the starter ahead of true freshman backup Mabrey Mettauer.
“It’s a really tough situation,” Fickell said. “We all understand that and we’ve seen that I’m not going to dive as much into it but I’ll just tell you the basic gist of what I told the team. It’s not about play calls. It’s not about points scored. It’s not about touchdowns. It’s moving forward with leadership, and that’s to me what we have to do and why we’re doing it right now.”
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As the season progressed there were clear philosophical differences between what Fickell and Longo wanted, with Fickell repeatedly stressing the need to lean on the offensive line and run game more. And while Longo’s offense emphasized the run, he failed to mesh his concepts with Wisconsin’s roster. Perhaps his most notable quote occurred when pressed about the lack of results earlier this season when he said: “I’m here to please coach Fickell.”
Longo did not respond to a cell phone request for comment this week from The Athletic.
Fickell offered his most telling comment Monday off a question that wasn’t specifically related to Longo and instead was about maintaining team morale.
“I think maybe that was one of those issues that was not as good as where we wanted it offensively that it was more about an individual,” Fickell said. “Like, that’s what the program is — it’s complementary ball. It’s so much everybody relying upon each other that any one person shouldn’t matter all that much.
“It’s hard to say, ‘Well they’re the coordinator.’ I hope that it wouldn’t be that much different if somebody else was calling the plays on offense or on defense. That’s my vision for where I want the program to grow.”
Fickell, who is 12-11 overall and 8-8 in the Big Ten since the start of last season, has shown he’s willing to change course when something doesn’t work. He fired offensive line coach Jack Bicknell Jr, who was hired along with Longo from North Carolina, at the end of last season. Fickell replaced him with A.J. Blazek, who has been a strong addition to the staff for his enthusiasm and coaching acumen.
Fickell said he didn’t make the move now with anything other than a view toward what was best for his current team. However, at least part of Wisconsin’s roster could hang in the balance depending on how Fickell moves forward. Wisconsin has 22 scholarship commits in the 2025 recruiting class with the early signing period beginning Dec. 4. The transfer portal window runs from Dec. 9-28. Fickell declined to provide a timeline for when he hopes to hire his next offensive coordinator, saying he was focused on preparing for Nebraska and “the rest of the timelines will probably just be in the back of my head.”
Who could replace Longo?
Several names have surfaced as potential candidates to replace Longo, including Guidugli. He was with Fickell at Cincinnati from 2017-22 as quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator and spent his last season there as offensive coordinator. Guidugli briefly followed Fickell to Wisconsin before accepting the Notre Dame job.
Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock was Fickell’s offensive coordinator at Cincinnati from 2017-21. His annual salary is $2.1 million, which makes him the highest-paid offensive coordinator in the country. Longo had one more year remaining on a three-year deal that paid him $1.25 million annually.
Another name that could be in consideration is Idaho coach Jason Eck, a former Badgers offensive lineman who played with Wisconsin assistant offensive line coach Casey Rabach for three seasons. Eck is 24-12 in three seasons at Idaho and has led the Vandals to the FCS playoffs in his first two seasons. Eck would represent more of a return to Wisconsin’s roots and give Fickell a staffer with previous ties to the program that has been missing outside of Rabach.
Other popular names include Ohio State co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach Brian Hartline, Washington State offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle and Indiana offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, among others.
“I do like what we do,” Fickell said. “It’s not like we want to go back and think we’re going to be in 22 personnel. We’ve got to have variety. We’ve got to be able to spread the field. But we’ve got to continue to build upon the things that we’ve done. … Regardless of who’s actually calling the plays, the progression is how you continue to evolve the offense in particular for what best fits Wisconsin. And what best fits Wisconsin is using the things that you do have.”
Fickell said that because he spent 20 years at just two schools (Ohio State and Cincinnati), he doesn’t necessarily have as many relationships with coaches as others have. He said he wouldn’t hesitate to hire someone he hasn’t directly worked with before, as was the case with Longo. But he also valued working with many of the same people for so long.
“I can tell you this,” Fickell said. “It’ll be the right one, the right person.”
Fickell can’t afford for it not to be.
(Photo: Jeff Hanisch / Imagn Images)
