Luke Fickell shares how Iowa's uncertainty at quarterback impacts his planning

Wisconsin opened the season 2-0, but has dropped three consecutive games to fall to 2-3 on the season. The Badgers are potentially facing yet another sub-six win season under Luke Fickell, something they haven’t done in back-to-back seasons since 1991-92.

They could however turn their season around this weekend at home against Iowa. Prolific FCS transfer quarterback Mark Gronowski led the Hawkeyes through the first five weeks of the season, but suffered a knee injury in Iowa‘s 20-15 loss to No. 15 Indiana two weeks ago. With his status in the air, Fickell addressed how Iowa‘s quarterback uncertainty is impacting their planning this week.

“It doesn’t,” Fickell said. “Obviously a quarterback change is dynamic with some things. What does somebody else do that he doesn’t do? So obviously it makes little preparation things but you don’t know. Things that you can’t control and don’t know, it’s hard to say you’ll prepare differently.

“There’s gonna be some adjustments that have to be made probably as you get into the game. If somebody else is in there and they’re more of a dynamic runner, we gotta make sure we have some adjustments for things that we need to be able to do.”

Fickell plans to rely more on in-game adjustments due to uncertainty

“If this guy’s a better thrower, then we gotta be able to make sure within our game plan to make some adjustments,” Fickell continued. “It happens. With this team in particular, it’s probably gonna be less of a change just with the nature of what it is they do really well, what it is that they want to do really well and the history of which they’ve done it. There will be some differences based on who it is, but I think those are sometimes more preparation and game adjustments.”

This season, Gronowski completed 64.2% of his passes for 636 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions across five starts. He led the Hawkeyes to a 3-2 record, although two of the three wins came against non Power-Four competition. If he is unable to go against the Badgers, Auburn transfer quarterback Hank Brown would get the start.

Brown relieved Gronowski following his injury last Saturday and completed just five of 13 passes for 48 yards. He also tossed one interception.

Kickoff between Iowa and Wisconsin this Saturday is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET. The game can be seen on FS1.