Luke Fickell gives candid response on potentially retaining Jim Leonhard

Now that Luke Fickell is officially in as the new Wisconsin head coach, all eyes are on Jim Leonhard. The former Badgers star served as the interim head coach following Paul Chryst’s firing and appeared to be in line for the full-time job before athletic director Chris McIntosh hired Fickell.

It’s now unclear where Leonhard ends up next year, and Fickell said he’s “definitely” considering the possibility he stays with the program. The two have spoken and more meetings are on the horizon as they get to know each other.

“I met with Jim for about an hour last night. We’ll meet again Wednesday,” Fickell said. “We had a great conversation. Very open to, obviously, picking his brain for a lot of things. He loves this place, he’s a die-hard. There’s a lot of options that are open. I respect Jim. I don’t know Jim all that well. I’m getting to know him. I know him from afar. We know people that know each other.

“I think we’re very similar in a lot of ways. Jim will know what’s best for him, Jim will know what’s best for the program, Jim will know what’s best for this team, and I respect that. We’ll continue to talk about what the future looks like, but we don’t know what that is right now.”

Luke Fickell shares advice he gave Jim Leonhard after hire

Fickell knows what it’s like to be an interim head coach when a program makes an outside hire. He was in that same spot at Ohio State in 2011 before the Buckeyes hired Urban Meyer, and he stayed on his staff until he left for Cincinnati in 2016.

That’s why Fickell could give Leonhard some advice about the situation.

“I think a lot of soul-searching,” Fickell said. “When I left Jim the other night, I said, ‘Hey, you’ve got a lot of things to think about. You’ve got to really, in your mind, figure out where you want to be in five years, where you want to be in 10 years. If you can figure out and say where you want to be in five years and where you want to be in 10 years, it’s going to help you a lot better to figure out where you want to be next year.’ That’s not easy. There’s a lot of things that we all have to be able to get over and get through. We didn’t dive into it as much. If he does pick my brain on some of those things, obviously, I would get deeper.

“But I know that it’s not an easy situation. It takes a special person, in some ways, to get over a lot of those things. I had a hard time with it. But I do believe it was the right thing for me in the way that I did it and went about it, and it helped me be who I am. My way is not always the right way. It’s not the way for everybody else. But I think that’s where it really comes down to what’s in your heart, what’s in your mind. He’ll know what’s best for him, he’ll know what’s best for this program and this team. I’m excited to just find out what he thinks.”