The Wisconsin Badgers are down in the dumps, and Wisconsin alum Dan “Big Cat” Katz is down there with them.
“It’s an absolute disaster in Madison, Wisconsin,” Katz said on Tuesday’s edition of “Wake Up Barstool” about Wisconsin. “It’s a program in absolute hell. … it is the Titanic going down, and they are basically playing the violins on the decks of the Titanic … these are good people, but, at some point, you have to look in the mirror and say ‘this is not working. We need to fit it, and part of the fix is we shouldn’t be doing these jobs nowhere, in terms of head coach [Luke Fickell] and being the athletic director [Chris McIntosh] …
“You’re not cut out for what you’re doing right now. This is a sunk-cost fallacy that Wisconsin is going with right now, where they’ve spent a lot of money on the head coach and they spent a lot of money on rebuilding facilities for the football program. The more money you put into the current iteration, the longer it’s going to take to get out of this hole. You throw a bunch of money next year, you maybe scratch together seven wins, but you don’t fix the actual structure and who’s in charge and who’s making these decisions, and then you have another year that’s going to bottom out. The longer you keep bottoming out and the longer you keep saying ‘hey, it’s fine, we can just throw money at this,’ the longer you’re going to be in irrelevancy.”
Following Wisconsin’s fifth consecutive loss and two consecutive shutouts at home, Athletic Director Chris McIntosh released a statement of “disappointment” about the team’s 2-5 record but also support for head coach Luke Fickell, saying that the school will continue to make “investments” in the football program.
Fickell – who went a combined 57-18 as head coach at Cincinnati from 2017-22, highlighted by a College Football Playoff appearance in the 2021 season – is in his third season at Wisconsin, with the program posting a 7-6 record in 2023 and a 5-7 record in 2024. The 2024 season marked the first time that the Badgers didn’t qualify for a bowl game since 2001.
Fickell inked a roughly seven-year, $55 million deal with Wisconsin in November 2022; there’s a roughly $25 million buyout in Fickell’s contract. Meanwhile, McIntosh is in his fifth football season as Wisconsin’s athletic director.
This season, Wisconsin is 0-4 in Big Ten play and been out-scored in those contests 122-20 to open the 2025 season. Its offense ranks last in the conference in total yards, at 271.3 per game, and points at 13.3 per. On the other side of the ball, the Badgers are 11th in opponent total yards (341.9 per game) and 13th in opponent points, with 24.3 allowed per game.
Wisconsin has three ranked opponents remaining on its 2025 schedule, beginning with a road matchup against No. 6 Oregon this coming Saturday (7 p.m. ET on FS1 and the FOX Sports app). Its other two ranked matchups are a road game against No. 2 Indiana and a home matchup against No. 23 Illinois, with a pair of current 5-2 programs – Washington at home and Minnesota on the road – rounding out the schedule.
“Fix it now. Otherwise, it’s going to get way, way worse. You guys are going to be the ones that killed the Wisconsin football program. It might already be dead, but you will, for sure, kill it if you keep doing the same things,” Katz expressed.
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