'We Quit on Ourselves': Wisconsin Aims to Handle Adversity Following Disastrous End to 2024 Season
MADISON, Wis. — Darryl Peterson didn’t recognize the signs until it was too late. Shaking off back-to-back losses to Alabama and USC, Wisconsin started to turn a corner midway through the 2025 season. The Badgers were 5-2 going into an October showdown with third-ranked Penn State, under the lights, at Camp Randall Stadium.
Leading 10-7 in the third quarter, former quarterback Braedyn Locke threw a pick-six to the Nittany Lions, a play that would shift the momentum of the entire season and start a downward spiral that UW would ultimately never recover from.
As he started to reflect and rewind the 2024 season, Peterson, a senior linebacker, came to the conclusion that the Badgers threw in the towel somewhere during the season-ending five-game losing streak.
“We quit on ourselves…Knowing that guys quit, kind of eats at me a little bit,” Peterson told reporters during UW’s annual media day.
The Badgers had other opportunities, and even gave No. 1 and eventual Big Ten champions Oregon everything they could handle two weeks later. Perhaps even more gutting, Wisconsin lost all three trophy games to Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota by a combined score of 110-42.
“To lose five straight, every week we started to believe in ourselves a little bit less,” Peterson stated.
“That’s the thing. You don’t notice when you’re in it. There’s so much that happens in a week. Everything happens too fast. We didn’t even catch this or see these things that would have tipped us off a little bit.”
Off-Season Blues
Needless to say, it was a painful off-season for Wisconsin. 2024 marked the first time the Badgers missed the postseason since 2001. Last season was also the first time UW failed to win a trophy game since 2003.
“It was long,” junior guard Joe Brunner said of the off-season. “Growing up in Wisconsin, you know the history…it hurts, it stinks.
“You make it a point of emphasis in the off-season to never have that feeling again. You gotta let it go at some point, but you’ve gotta let it sting too.”
The Iowa loss is still talked about to this day. Coming off that defeat at the hands of PSU, Wisconsin took to the road to try and rebound, only to surrender 329 rushing yards in a 42-10 loss in Iowa City, the most lopsided beatdown the Badgers have suffered in the season since 1968. Serving as a constant reminder, UW did 42 pushups after every practice in the spring.
“That wasn’t the team I went to fall camp with or played the first few games with,” said Peterson.
Fickell Establishes Leadership Committee
Wisconsin’s late-season collapse inspired head coach Luke Fickell to establish a leadership committee going into the 2025 season. A select group of players, mostly upperclassmen sprinkled in with a few young guys, meet once per week to check the pulse of the program. Also involved in those meetings and hangouts, Fickell hopes a tighter relationship with his squad will keep the Badgers together when adversity inevitably strikes at some point this season.
“What we did a poor job of last year was handling the situation after Penn State,” Fickell said from Big Ten media days. “Devastated, didn’t move on, couldn’t even think about anything until Thursday.
“Might have been a mistake on my part to not recognize that.”
Entering his fourth season as a starter, Peterson certainly would have had options elsewhere should he have packed up and run for the transfer portal. However, that block ‘W’ “means everything” to the Ohio native, who has 7.5 career sacks to his name. Emerging as a leader in his fifth and final season, Peterson is taking what he learned from the likes of Nick Herbig and Jack Sanborn, who were mentors to him in his early playing days.
When Peterson was being recruited, Wisconsin football was at or near its height. From 2014 to 2019, the Badgers posted an impressive 63-19 overall record, including 10 or more wins in five of those six seasons. Building off that momentum, UW signed its highest-rated recruiting class in school history in 2021, which Peterson was a part of.
“When I was being recruited here, they had just gone to the Rose Bowl. That was the standard I had for the place,” said Peterson, who is part of Fickell’s leadership group. “That gets in your head. You can kind of expect that. When that’s not the case, you don’t know what to do.
“I’ve been really intentional about how I lead this year.”
Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel?
In Fickell’s first two full seasons, Wisconsin has posted a 12-12 overall record, including an 8-10 mark in Big Ten play. More than ready to wipe away the bad tastes in their mouths, the Badgers will have to do it against what many feel is the nation’s toughest schedule, as the likes of Alabama, Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan, and Illinois aren’t going to feel sorry for them.
“We see that as more fuel,” said senior safety Austin Brown. “We’re already counted out by a lot of people. Our own fans count us out. We’ve got nothing to lose.
“Yeah, it’s one of the hardest schedules, if not the hardest, but who would want it any other way?”
