Chris McIntosh, Luke Fickell address timeline on head coach decision

With Luke Fickell leaving Cincinnati for Wisconsin, one team is stepping off the coaching carousel while another is forced onto it. In his introductory press conference, Luke Fickell and athletic director Chris McIntosh broke down the timeline for bringing Fickell in to coach Wisconsin.

Chris McIntosh spoke first and broke down the decision from his standpoint, which included meeting with other candidates, like Jim Leonhard, and choosing between different visions for the program.

“We spent the process getting to know each other. It wasn’t until, and I know there’s a tremendous amount of interest in the step-by-step of the process and what thresholds we crossed in terms of getting to know each other and the like, but I would tell you that it was last week in which I had a chance to fully evaluate the candidates that were in consideration, including Jimmy,” Chris McIntosh said.

“You know we sat down with Jimmy, Monday afternoon for a few hours and got a sense for what his vision was for this program. It was after that, that I was forced with making a really tough but important decision, and it was at that time that I realized Luke was the guy.”

There had been speculation that Leonhard was given the opportunity to try out for the head coaching job as the interim. It didn’t work out for him, though McIntosh did express gratitude toward him.

“It was hard for me,” Luke Fickell admitted. “I knew that there was interest. I’m not a great guy to build relationships with when you’re in the midst of, you know, the battle.”

For his part, Luke Fickell admitted it was a difficult decision. His focus was on Cincinnati and not other jobs, though he was aware of the interest. For Fickell, it was a slow process in even deciding that this is what he wanted to do with his family.

“So, I tried to stay really, really focused and try not to think about it, and my wife and I would take those opportunities, maybe an hour here or there, but I truly couldn’t tell you that I really truly knew exactly what I wanted to do until I could almost finish up what I was doing,” Luke Fickell said.

“Everybody’s like, ‘what was the straw and the thing,’ but it’s just a process and as I even started to think about it in little snippets, I just started to feel better and better and better about what this place is and what it can be. I don’t know if I could tell you dad woke up after our last game and I said this is what we’re gonna do, but it was that process. It was those little moments. It probably wasn’t truly to the very end that I was looking at my wife and saying we’ve got to do this.”

Luke Fickell doesn’t want to be a transfer program

After seeing how quickly some coaches have built rosters at schools using the transfer portal, it can be tempting to go in that direction. However, that’s not how Luke Fickell wants to build the Wisconsin program.

“We did not want to be a transfer team [at Cincinnati]. I do not want to be a transfer team. I’m a high school recruiting guy that says it’s about development of young men. We had a matrix for transfers. We’ve had a matrix to say they’ve got to his these points, these situations, and these things because the last thing I want to do is a bring a guy into our program that’s going to mess with the culture, that’s going to mess with the environment, that’s going to mess with the relationships inside a lot of those rooms,” Luke Fickell said.

“More than anything, it’s got to be a right fit. And it’s got to be the right people. The thing about transfers is sometimes you don’t know. You don’t have the opportunity like you’ve had in high school to get to know them, to be in their home, to build some relationships, and know when they walk in the door that they’ve got four or five years to grow and develop into what it is that you want. I’ve never been a proponent of the transfer portal. But, I think we have used it and would use it only in ways to fill gaps.”