Wisconsin

Training Camp is in full swing, but not in Madison. If YOU want to see the Badgers practice, where should you be, and when?

Minimizing Distractions

Luke Fickell made a change to training camp last offseason to “minimize distractions.” He took the team to UW-Platteville for the first week of training camp. The players stayed in the dorms, were served food by the school, and used the University’s facilities for practice and conditioning. 

Fickell was a fan of this “road trip” training camp during his time at Cincinnati. It builds team chemistry and accelerates integrating transfers into the locker room. But most importantly, it minimizes distractions. At an hour and 15 minutes from Madison, the players are sufficiently far enough away from the Madison party scene, their friends, and their girlfriends, that the only thing they can focus on is football.

Last year was considered such a success, the Badgers are doubling down in 2024. Instead of 1 week in Platteville, it’s 15 days this year. They left town on July 29 and won’t be back until August 12. The Badgers have committed to returning to Platteville for training camp for the next 3 seasons, so don’t expect …

How many new players are on the roster in 2024? What’s the positional breakdown of the new guys? Did the Badgers bring in more Freshmen or Transfers?

New Faces in Madison

There are 85 scholarships on an FBS football roster. How many of those 85 weren’t in Madison last year?

There are 2 categories of new guys here: Freshmen, and Transfers.

Let’s start with the ones who are unlikely to play, but are the future of the program: The Freshmen. Wisconsin brought in 22 scholarship freshmen in 2024. That’s pretty close to the pre-transfer portal standard of 25ish new freshmen per year. Wisconsin is sticking to traditional recruiting, even in the portal era. 

The breakdown by position. 

5 – Offensive Lineman
4 – Defensive Backs
3 – Running Backs 
3 – Linebackers
3 – Defensive Lineman
2 – Tight Ends
1 – Wide Receiver
1 – Quarterback

Wisconsin likes to handle the development of Offensive linemen themselves. They brought in 5 freshmen in 2024, and 5 freshmen in 2023. We’ll get to transfers shortly, but you’ll notice they only took one O-Lineman from the portal this year.

Running Back is also a position where the Badgers are quite …

We previewed Wisconsin’s opponents last week, but there are a couple of quirks with this year’s schedule worth talking about.

2 Bye Weeks? 

Question: Why do the Badgers have 2 bye weeks in 2024? 
Answer: Because the season is based on holidays, not calendar dates. 

The Badgers aren’t special in 2024, everyone has 2 bye weeks. 

About every  3 out of 10 years is a double bye week year. The college football season is based on the number of Saturdays from Labor Day to Thanksgiving. Because those holidays can move calendar dates from year to year, the number of Saturdays between them varies from 13 to 14. When there are 13 Saturdays, college football has 1 bye week. When there are 14 Saturdays, there are 2 bye weeks. Now you can sound smart when someone at work asks why the Badgers are off again in November.

Side note: there are teams that play in “week 0” this year too. They get 3 bye weeks. 

Friday Night Lights

If you don’t like B1G football on Friday nights, blame FOX. 

The Badgers have 2 Friday games in 2024

• Week 1 vs Western Michigan on Friday 8/30 at 8:00 PM CST on FS1

…

Walk On Fan, your favorite place for college football news and opinions, is back.

June isn’t too early to start talking about football, right?

This will be our second season covering everything to do with college football that we find interesting. Hopefully you find it interesting too. 

The plan is to write shorter pieces than last year, and hopefully be a little more consistent with our upload schedule. In the summer that won’t mean much, but in-season we’re shooting for 3 articles a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Wednesday of course means…

Wisco Wednesday isn’t going anywhere

As unapologetic Badger fans, we will return to Wisco on Wednesday, 7/3/24, with a short preview of the Badgers 2024 schedule. As the season gets closer, we can dig into what makes individual games interesting and what’s different about this year’s Badger football team compared to last year. 

B1G focused… Kinda

There are a lot of college football teams to talk about. Right now, there are 134 FBS schools. That’s 134 teams that, theoretically, could win the college football playoff and take home a natty. (Even though it’s really a 5 team race this year between Ohio State, Oregon, Georgia…

Free Agency in CFB. Does anyone sit anymore? Who is QB #1 in Madison? 

Wisconsin fans, you’ve seen this story before. You were just on the other side of it.

Graham Mertz was a 4* QB fans thought would elevate the program. He showed promise in year 1, regressed in years 2 and 3, and eventually became a turnover machine that Badger fans couldn’t wait to run out of town. His time in Madison ended with him transferring to Florida to salvage his college career.

This is Tyler Van Dyke’s story… except he’s going from Florida (Miami) to Wisconsin. 

Why Tyler Van Dyke?

Okay, so Mertz and Van Dyke aren’t exactly the same, but they are very comparable. Tyler Van Dyke was actually better in 2021 than Mertz ever was. In the 2021 season, Van Dyke averaged over 300 ypg, and threw 25 TDs to 6 INTs. That was good enough for him to win ACC Rookie of the Year. A lot of the credit for his success, in hindsight, has gone to the up-tempo, air-raid offense Miami ran in 2021… you see where I’m going with this. 

In 2022: he had a new offensive coordinator (…

The Transfer Portal is Open. A Camp Randall Update. Fullbacks are People Too. 

WR Exodus

The transfer portal is open, and that means some Badgers are leaving.

The top 3 WRs from 2022 all entered the portal on Dec. 4th

• Chimera Dike
• Skyler Bell
• Kiontez Lewis

While I’m not thrilled about losing these guys, a lot of it has to do with a loss of playing time. Transfers that Wisconsin brought in last year are just getting the majority of the snaps (particularly Pauling and Green). I also expect Wisconsin to go get more transfer WRs this cycle. 

A Few Other Loses

• Braelon Allen is going to the NFL draft
• LT Jack Nelson and C Tanor Bortolini may enter the draft (currently undecided)
• Myles Burkett (QB3) has entered the transfer portal
• A couple of previous walk-on guys have entered the portal

Yes, these are losses… but they are not major losses (except Braelon) or big surprises. It won’t take much for the Badgers to be net positive in the transfer portal this offseason. 

Tearing Up Alvarrez Field

Camp Randall’s turf is being torn out. It’s been through 2 football seasons, and now it’s done. …

The Ax is Back Home, But This is Not the Season Wisconsin Wanted Back in August. 

Looking Back: The Hurry-Up Raid Works

Wisconsin 28
Minnesota 14

The Offense Clicked

2 Weeks, 2 games played, 2 good offensive performances. It’s a Wisconsin miracle. Was it the Air-Raid finally working? Kinda… but not really the way you would expect. It was the Hurry-Up Raid. A balance of pass and run (lots of run), but sped way up. The hurry-up worked against Nebraska, and it worked again against Minnesota. 28 points is the most the Badgers have put up since week 4 at Purdue. Maybe Longo does know what he’s doing. I just wish it didn’t take a full season to figure it out. 

The Ax is Home

The Ax is back where it belongs: Madison, Wisconsin. Braelon Allen got to chop down the goalposts in Minneapolis before he goes to the NFL. All is well. 

Wisconsin didn’t lose to Minnesota 3 years in a row.
Wisconsin is going bowling again (and it’s not the Quick Lane Bowl).
Wisconsin will have a winning season no matter what.
Wisconsin fans are happy. 

Good things happen when …