What They Said: Wisconsin HC Luke Fickell's pre-Michigan press conference

Opening Statement

Well, as everybody always asks, is it a good week for a bye? In some ways, yes. But then again, you know, that’s tough sometimes when things are lingering when you have a bye week. But for all intents and purposes, we did what we needed to do. I think coming off this bye week, we got reps for guys that need to get reps. We got opportunity to look ourselves in the face and figure out some things that we need to do a lot better, along with, you know, giving some guys an opportunity to hopefully get some of these, I say minor injuries, but things that can heal up within a week or two, an opportunity maybe to heal up. So I think all those things combined together gave us a good opportunity to use the bye in the best way possible. And, you know, obviously coming off of that, as we get rolling into this week, there’s a lot of things we still don’t know with some guys with some minor injuries. But I know that, you know, we used it the right or what we believe is the right way to get some of those guys some time to heal up a little bit, even the Joe Brunners of the world who’ve played a lot of football that, you know, obviously dinged up his knee last week. Didn’t take a bunch of reps, but had an opportunity to obviously work on some things personally himself. But as a whole, you know, more so to just say, hey, let’s focus. Let’s figure out where we are, what we need to do. We know it’s all about the process of getting better. And that’s what’s most important to us right now. And that’s where we’ve struggled a little bit. But I think we used that last week in a really good way, not just for young guys, but for old guys as well.

[Sign up for Maize & Blue Review for $1 and get PLUS access for 7 days!]

On the status of injured players

Oh, no, (Preston) Zachman, he’ll be out. He’s not a guy that we’ll get back just yet. The other guys, we don’t know. We’ll go out there today and see where those guys are. Most of those guys did not do much last week. Dillan (Johnson) did a little bit. I think he ran pretty well. Not in contact situations. But, you know, I hope and we hope to get all those guys back. But I think that, you know, obviously early in this week will be have to be smart. But the preparation for saying, hey, hopefully we have those guys is where we are right now. It’s a lot of unknowns.

On the lessons to be learned from the Maryland game regarding Billy Edwards’ status

Yeah, it’s what it’s probably the thing that, you know, lingers as much as anything. Even in the situations we’ve been in the last two years, you knew where you were. I mean, OK, a guy’s out for five weeks after surgery. A guy’s out for the year. The hardest thing is, is there’s a lingering, like, how long does this last? What’s best? Trying to make the right decisions, the best decisions. And that’s where I put it on myself to say, I said to you guys several times we’d have to save him from himself. And in some ways, that’s probably what I would say I didn’t do. I didn’t save him from himself with that game. Wanting to play, expecting to play, preparing to play. But the truth of the matter is, he probably wasn’t in a position where he was ready to play. And that’s where we got to do a better job. That’s where we — so when you ask, where is Bill? I don’t know right now. We just got to be able to see because that’s one of those things that each and every week they’re better. But how much better are they? And can you test it during the week to figure out where they are so you don’t get in a situation like we did against Maryland?

On how to fix the issues to make the team play consistently better football

Spent a lot of time thinking about that. Spent a lot of time asking questions about that. With the group of guys that you trust to give you some good feedback and there’s a lot of things, right? I mean, the simple excuse thing to say is, hey, we got to get some guys healthy. Get them in situations where obviously they give us a better opportunity to build the confidence of the things that we’re doing. But I think it’s, all in all, it’s figuring out how this whole thing works together. How do you — because I would be honest with you on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you practice, you feel like, hey, we’re getting better. We’re doing the things, we’ve got the attitude. The performance that we’ve had on Saturday the last couple of weeks has just not been that. Getting and taking that transition from what we’ve done all week and what they’ve done all week and what they prepared to do and then being able to do it on Saturday is the kind of the hurdle right now that we’re at. And is that more reps? Is that what a bye week is for? Is that getting those guys the ability to work together? A lot of those things got to fall in line, but we got to make something happen. I think when it comes down to it, if you just kind of sit back and say, well, something good’s got to happen, well, you know what? You got to make something good happen. I think as a whole for us, we have to continue to push and find ways to make some thing good happen. And when that happens, you kind of see the things start to pick up from there. And that’s just where we are right now in the last two games. We have not been able to make something good happen, which then creates a little bit more of that momentum and energy, even within a game. So is there an exact something that we came up with over spending an enormous amount of time over the last week saying, OK, what is that? You know, there’s a lot of different things, but I think more than anything, it’s still the concept of how do you continue to pound the rock of what you’re doing and trusting and believing that you’re going to be able to make not wait for something good to happen, but be able to make something good happen.

On whether he expects any changes to be made on the offensive line

We don’t know right now. You know, we’ve made some changes around. I think Davis has played some center this past week and did a pretty good job at that, and just trying to figure out, you know, do we get some guys healthy? Is Jake able to go? Is Kerry Kadonko ready to go again? If they are, we have an opportunity to be able to move some of those guys around, use those older guys. But a lot of those pieces are what makes it difficult, right? I mean, even in the bye week, Joe Brunner didn’t take a lot of snaps and just so guys having to fill that spot. And so that mixture of guys playing with each other at the same time where we’ve been fortunate enough to be able to do for those guys to build the, you know, the camaraderie and the ability to, you know, know what each other are doing, even when it’s not said, has been, you know, obviously an Achilles heel for us right now. So there could be some changes based on the health of these guys as we get into this week. But it’s another one of those things that’s just been most difficult. It’s not knowing in your preparation who will you have as you get towards Saturday along those lines with the offensive line.

On improving the sacks allowed number going up against a strong Michigan DL

Well, we have to be smarter. We have to be able to do what the guys can do. There’s ways of helping those guys out up front, you know, and that’s what we’ve got to do. It’s as you get in the week, we’ve got to do a better job, in particular, up there of saying, OK, this is who we have and this is what we need to prepare for, as opposed to, well, if we have this guy, we can do this. We have this guy, we can do that. And that’s where that’s on us as coaches that we have to make sure that we got to make a game plan. We got to say this is who we’re playing with. If somebody else is available, that’s great. But we’ve got to prepare for the guys that we’ve got with the young guys do what we know that they can do in a better way, and then expect them to be able to play, you know, at and above their God given talent. And that’s where there’s a combination of things that us as coaches have to do a better job of, but also our players have to do a better job of as well. And yeah, it is a strength ,obviously, this week of Michigan. They’ve done a phenomenal job the last few years defensively. They’re as talented as anybody up front, even though they lost two first-round draft picks on the interior. There is a definite challenge to those guys up front. And I think in this past week was something that we had obviously talked about, not that we were getting into Michigan. It was a focus on ourselves in a way that we can get better, but knowing what was out there.

On facing Michigan’s rush attack

Yeah, it’ll be a test. I don’t know that we’ve had by any means a test like this in the running game this year. And so we have done a good job up front. We’ve done a good job at controlling the run and giving ourselves better opportunities, obviously, to win football games when you can stop the run. But this is definitely going to be a different challenge. I think that is definitely the strength of the offense. But at times when you do that, then you also got to realize and recognize that they got opportunities to make big plays in the passing game as well, whether it’s the quarterback’s feet, the quarterback’s arm. They’ve got talented players on the outside. I think maybe what they don’t get as much credit for is the balance that they have. It’s maybe overlooked sometimes when they’ve run the ball as well as they have with the backs that they’ve got. But it’s going to be a different challenge for us defensively. That’s for sure. For our ability to eliminate the big play in the run game more so than anything else.

On Mason Posa’s growth

Yeah, there’s some young guys, especially, you talk about Mason Posa. There’s a guy that wasn’t here in the spring. So you really didn’t have an idea. And that’s obviously difficult for young guys to play anyway. But when they’re here in the spring, they got a much better opportunity. But he’s done a great job. We’ve actually used him in some package stuff. Played a little bit more on the third down stuff a week ago, which obviously gave us an opportunity to maybe to switch those guys up inside and maybe give some guys some rest as well. But what he does is going to continue to grow. And that’s where you see some of the youth. And that’s what we’ve got to count on, right? I mean, when you’re asking how do you make some things happen, and how do you get over some of these humps, and how do you continue to grow and build? Well, there’s a lot of young guys and where there are some things that they’re tough with those young guys. You got to be able to battle through with them. And by nature, those guys, as long as they can keep the energy, they can keep the emotion, they can see the growth and the things that they’re doing, they bring you energy. And I think that’s one of those guys in particular in Mason Posa that has done that. He’s a guy that, I’m not saying he knows everything. I’m not saying he knows most of the stuff. But the great thing about some guys like him is it doesn’t slow him down. And when he has an opportunity to make some plays, he puts himself in a position and he makes them. And we’ve seen that in the first four games, whether it’s been in some late game stuff, whether it’s been in some crucial situations, you know, and he hasn’t made some mistakes, and he came around the edge a week ago and it was a little bit out of control. The guy got the edge on us. But I think that those guys do give us some energy and some, some things that we need in those sparks to say, hey, we have to find a way to continue to pound this rock, but find a way to make some things happen. And by nature, sometimes these young guys are ones that can do that for us.

On where Ricardo Hallman can improve

No, in particular, Rico just needs to — the frustrations of things is difficult. It’s welcome to the world of being a field corner, right? I mean, there’s no action, there’s no action, then there’s a bunch of action and when the limited times you have opportunities to maybe make a play, sometimes they don’t go your way. The expectation of what Rico has for himself sometimes hurts him. And he puts himself in this idea that he has to make every play. And the truth of the matter is you can’t make every play. I think it’s just him calming down and playing with some poise, sticking to the base fundamentals of what he does. When the plays are there to be made, he’s got to be able to make them, but he also can’t get too frustrated when they don’t come his way. And that’s a part of growing up, obviously, he’s a mature, older guy. A couple of years ago with the interceptions and the things that came his way has been something that’s probably been a little bit more difficult for him because that’s not as normal for a field corner as maybe happened a few years ago. But the truth of the matter is, it’s just, it’s the little things, it’s believing and trusting and being ready when those opportunities arise.

On the challenges of facing a quarterback like Bryce Underwood

Being a defensive guy in general, the quarterbacks that have the ability to beat you with their arms and their legs always makes it difficult. Even for a younger guy that has a lot of poise. The guy that has some weapons around him, he hasn’t overdone it. That’s the thing that I would say is impressive. They haven’t run him a ton. He hasn’t just taken off and scrambled when something wasn’t there. His ability to pick and choose when he does is obviously, as you saw a week ago for them, were some huge, huge plays in the quarterback run game, whether it was a called QB draw or improvised on some things that broke down. That’s why I said that when we talked about the run game, you can’t just say, hey, we’re just going to pile the box and stop the run. You do those things, you pile everybody up inside, and Underwood can make you pay on the edges with his feet, as well as being able to get the ball down the field. So there’s a balance to it. That’s why he obviously was as highly touted as he is. I think they’ve done a good job with being smart with what they’ve asked him to do, but still allowing his abilities to show. So it’s another challenge that I don’t think you see every week.

On how the team has rallied together during the bye week

The culture and the nature of these guys is really good, good heart. I mean, like they came out in the bye week on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, like we practice, and they came out with energy. They came out, did what you asked them to do. Now, you know, a guy like Joe, we didn’t ask to do a whole lot, you know, he had a banged-up knee, but it wasn’t like he was over there riding the bike or sitting on the side. I mean, he’s up there probably as vocal as anybody at getting after some of the young guys and coaching it up and pushing guys. And that’s the thing that sometimes I wonder about, right? You don’t see some of those things just because the nature of these guys still go out, they do everything you ask them to do. If we’d asked them to practice four days during the bye week, they’d have practiced all four days during the bye week. I think that’s what’s going to be challenged and has been challenged and will continue to be challenged, is our ability to say, look, guys, we know we have to get better. There’s a process to getting better. There has to, we have to see some of those steps to getting better, but there’s no way of doing it if you can’t stay together and you can’t keep your mind going in a direction, I can always say positive, but going in a direction that gives us a chance to get better.

On keeping the team focused during a difficult stretch of games

It’s consistency and I hammered away at it this morning with the coaches as well, right? I mean, our ability to be consistent in what we’re doing, right? We can’t get out of character like I’ve talked about, right? Okay. Stay positive. Well, there’s an honesty piece behind this thing. But there’s also a consistency piece that it’s really, really important. There’s only one way to get better and that’s with consistency and regardless of what the opponents look like, because you’re right, it’s a stretch and every single one of them bring a different challenge, whether they’re the top ranked team in the country or they’re not the top ranked team in the country, every one of them bring an incredible challenge. And that’s what this business is. That’s what this league is. What’s going to have to be a consistency. And I don’t just mean from the players, I mean from the coaches as well. And so our ability to maintain and sustain some consistency as we continue to push and grow is going to be every bit as important as anything else.

On Jeff Grimes trying to keep things simple offensively

He has to try to push the balance, and maybe a little bit too much is what we’ve kind of probably looked at here over the bye week. Do you want to be able to be creative in some ways, but you also got to find a way to be consistent. And right now, whether it’s keeping guys together, it’s keeping guys focused, it’s keeping guys moving forward. If you don’t have consistency in anything that you’re doing, it’s really tough. And so where you work some of that stuff — don’t know that it was probably, maybe as you hindsight look back at it, maybe the time and the place for a few of those things. But when you’re not just sitting back trying to say, hey, something good’s got to happen. You got to make something good happen. I understand that we get into some of those situations and I think that’s what the bye week gave us an opportunity to do is say, okay, hey, how do we not just say, hey, we’re going to do these three things, but how do you have enough balance to what you’re doing, but enough creativity to still be consistent. Again, when you have what you have to prepare for, I think you got a better chance, meaning like if you know who you’re 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 guys that you’re going to be playing with, you have a better opportunity. But I think the shifting and a lot of the different pieces that we’ve played with in particular offensively have probably made it more difficult for us to be consistent and keep some of the creativity that maybe isn’t working in the best way for us.

On having the Alabama game experience help with another loud environment

Yeah. I think that some of those preparation things that we had to do for that meeting offensively with some of the silent cadence and things. I think it just gives you another opportunity. You’re ahead of the curve. Maybe it was late in the year last year when we actually had to work on it before we went to Iowa, and it wasn’t something we did well enough. So I think all of those things add up, but it goes back to that same thing. Can you use those experiences to your advantage, whether they were a positive one or negative one, right? Most experiences that don’t end up in a win by nature become a negative experience, but there are a lot of positives that you got to be able to take out of it. And I think that’s where we got to make sure that whether it was Alabama, whether it was last week or we could have two weeks ago, a week ago, Maryland, how do you find the things? Not saying, hey, let’s just find the positives. How do you use those things as opportunities to say, okay, where do we need to get better? And so I think that obviously the experience at Alabama gives us a greater opportunity, but we’re going to need it as we continue, whether it’s this week or as we move forward in the next few weeks.

On keeping the confidence of the offensive line high

No, it’s a consistency. I mean, I keep using it, going back to the same thing. It’s consistency and understanding that guys got to be able to get some thick skin too. I mean, they got to be able to recognize what’s in front of them and understand and be able to accept some failures, right? I think that’s the thing. I think that the toughest thing for young guys is to be able to, let’s say, accept failure, but be able to move on from failure, whether that’s on a play, whether that’s on a series, whether that’s in a game. I’m not saying it gets any easier as you get older, but that’s that competitive maturity that we’ve been kind of pounding in to say, hey, we’re going to have to, we’re going to rely upon this in many different ways, whether that’s playing through camp on competitive maturity, staying on our feet or being able to handle some situations that obviously didn’t come out in a positive way. It’s not one thing again, you can do it. So you can keep talking positive to them. I think it’s a consistency to how you treat them. It’s a consistency to make sure they understand what the real is and then it’s the ability to keep them playing fast. I think the biggest issue is whether can they continue to play aggressive and play fast, even though you make mistakes. And that’s different for different guys. We brought up Mason Posa earlier. He was a guy that, like I said, has made some mistakes and the opportunities he’s been out there, but it hasn’t slowed him down. And I think that we just got to continue with a lot of these younger guys, older guys as well, as mistakes are going to happen, but we’ve got to be able to have that competitive maturity to be able to move past them.

On whether he’s done anything differently as a coach to keep the confidence up

No, I don’t think it’s just being able to put it past you. It’s, like I said, in the offseason, talking with a buddy of mine that, obviously he’s in the NFL and in the NFL, there’s a short memory and that was not something that I had experienced a lot of. And so we say competitive maturity. It wasn’t just for the players. It was also for the coaches. It was also for myself and the ways of saying, hey, you’re not accepting a loss, but you’re able to process it and move past it. And there’s a maturity that has to happen that, kike I said, maybe it wasn’t a strong suit of mine, as well as us understanding and recognizing it for our team. But that’s where the consistency has to come in on my part, right? Like we talked about, to put your hand through a wall or to lose your emotions and to bring everything out of what you’re feeling inside doesn’t always help in everybody around you. And so what I’m speaking to the players, I’m also speaking to myself, and I’m not saying it’s gotten any easier. But it’s something that I kind of going into this thing, I kind of understood like, hey, we’re going to have to be able to handle these situations, however they arise.