Is Fickell Too Big To Fire?

Why won’t the UW fire athletic director Chris McIntosh and football coach Luke Fickell?

I have my theories. One of them, as expressed over in my Isthmus blog this week, was that Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, who could fire McIntosh outright and Fickell by extension, had not yet heard enough from big donors, both those who give to athletics and to the Madison campus for quaint academic stuff. I figured once they had voiced their displeasure with the implied threat of closing their checkbooks she’d act.

Well, so much for that. This week it was reported that the biggest booster of them all, Ted Kellner, was still firmly in the McIntosh/Fickell camp. And he joins Barry Alvarez there. So now it appears that Fickell’s job is secure through next season at least. That’s despite the fact that the Badgers are dead last among the 18 teams in the Big Ten and the Athletic has them ranked 93rd out of the 136 teams in the major conferences.

Meanwhile other schools are firing coaches with better records. James Franklin was sacked at Penn State with a contract buyout of $49 million while Brian Kelly got the ax at LSU and he’s owed $53 million just to walk away. Kelly got the heave ho after losing to Texas A&M, which itself paid the largest contract buyout in sports history to Jimbo Fisher, a whopping $77 million. And that was after they fired the previous coach and paid him $17 million just to leave. So on that one field that Saturday evening in the LSU – A&M game sat a total of $147 million in contract buyouts — money for nothing.

And athletic programs are wondering where they’re going to come up with money to pay the players.

Well now, that could be the problem with firing Fickell. He’s owed a paltry $28 million to get out of the way, but McIntosh now complains that the Badgers don’t have enough money to compete for players under the new NIL rules. Enter Kellner who stepped in to agree and to suggest that more big booster bucks were on the way.

So, it’s possible that the reason Mnookin won’t press McIntosh to fire Fickell is that she knows they can’t afford it.

That’s become an issue at LSU. The governor of Louisiana has inserted himself in that mess because he fears taxpayers may be on the hook for the Kelly payout or the next one. He’s said he doesn’t trust LSU’s athletic director, who now has inked two contracts that will cost the school a total of $70 million, not to make the same mistake with Kelly’s replacement. “If big billionaires want to spend all that kind of money, no problem,” Gov. Jeff Landry said. “But if I’ve got to go find $53 million … it’s not going to be a pleasant conversation.”

There’s yet another possibility. Maybe Alvarez and Kellner are being sincere. Maybe they really think Fickell is turning it around — all evidence to the contrary. And, the thing is, all evidence is not to the contrary. In last Saturday’s inevitable loss to Oregon, four freshmen — two linebackers, a running back and a wide receiver — looked good. They are Fickell recruits and they were only pressed into service because of injuries. So, if they’re harbingers of what’s to come, well, maybe things will get better next year.

On the other hand, Fickell has now had two full recruiting cycles plus part of a third. His players should have showed up before now and it wasn’t like Paul Chryst had left the cupboard empty.

I think it’s more likely that the Badgers just can’t afford to pay Fickell to go away, so they’re making the best of a bad situation until his contract buyout hits a manageable number, maybe after one more awful season.

That’s my theory and I’m sticking with it.