Luke Fickell ran a lot of 11 personnel and 12 personnel at Cincinnati. Eleven personal is one running back, one tight end, and three wide receivers. Twelve personnel is one running back, two tight ends, and two wide receivers. Wisconsin ran a lot of 12 personnel over Chryst’s tenure. When Graham Mertz came to Wisconsin, they ran a lot of 11 personnel, because Graham was supposed to have a great arm. The big difference between Cincinnati and Wisconsin is Cincinnati ran their quarterback and we didn’t. The Badgers were a run first team under Chryst and only threw when needed.
Coach Fickell will bring a more balance offense, which you need in college football today. He still likes to run the ball first and be physical, but has a good quarterback who throws and runs. Wisconsin can get good running backs and offensive linemen. They need to recruit more dual threat quarterbacks to make Fickell’s offense shine. Now that the transfer portal is here, you can get players quicker to fill holes on your team.
Luke runs a 3-3-5 defense, which is three linemen, three linebackers, and five defensive backs. Wisconsin has run a 3-4 defense, since Gary Anderson was the coach. The Badgers have a lot of talented cornerbacks and linebackers on the roster right now. They also have good young linemen, but not a space eater for the nose tackle position. Wisconsin has been recruiting a guy from high school this year who is 320 pounds. If the Badgers can get him to come to Wisconsin, they would have the pieces to run that type of defense. You could also look in the transfer portal for a guy like that too.
Overall, the Badgers have enough pieces to run Fickell’s offensive and defensive system. Wisconsin has a couple of dual threat quarterbacks on their roster. They can be used to bridge, until Fickell can recruit the quarterback he wants. He is probably going to get a quarterback from the portal for depth. On the defensive side, we have enough players at every position to run the 3-3-5.