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DT Luke Fickell (HC Wisconsin Badgers)

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ShowMeBuck said:
Good at developing talent, good at identifying underrated talent, or just lucky to stumble on underrated talent? Awfully hard for most arm chair fans to decide which correctly applies to a coach.
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Once, maybe twice. But not several years in a row. Coach Fickell has enough of a track record that it's not attributable to luck. No one is that lucky. Well, maybe Les Miles has been that lucky. But no one else. Fickell has shown he can recruit and develop talent. He'll get things turned around.
 
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I never said which of these applied to Fick. I was simply making a comment that casual fans who think they can say which of these 3 scenarios fits a coach are fooling themselves. Put it this way, if Urban new the exact answer to this question he would always get every coaching hire right. Even Urb with his pedigree can't exactly say but yet the causal fan is able to nail it? It's just amusing to me that's all. Personally I think the best coaches out there have, at best, a ratio of something like this for a snapshot of the stand out players they get to work with: 40% of the time they developed the talent better than most coaches could have, maybe they just had a connection with the athlete that allowed each to work well together. 35% for identifying talent and maybe 25% pure luck. And that's the best coaches IMO.

And on the topic of "coaching them up" I wonder how often that is really the case or perhaps it is simply that a successful coach knows the limits of what their player can do and they just do a good job scheming around it to allow hide their weakness and showcase their talent. With Fick, I have no clue which of the 3 scenarios most accurately fits his resume. I am not qualified to say. I do think, partly he was able to have more success a few years back when he had less on his plate. No knock on him but his best days as a position coach were when he had less overall responsibilities and I don't that is a mere coincidence.

I think he is a very loyal guy who puts the team first. I think he did a great job keeping everything together during the shit storm he was head honcho. I think he is a great recruiter. I think he is being given the opportunity to get back to doing what he does best. I hope the chemistry with Ash allows this to happen. If Urb's compliments on the selfishness of Fick during this current transition are true then I applaud Fick for putting the team first. He has a ton of young talent to work with and I am excited to see what he does with it.
 
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ShowMeBuck said:
I never said which of these applied to Fick. I was simply making a comment that casual fans who think they can say which of these 3 scenarios fits a coach are fooling themselves. Put it this way, if Urban new the exact answer to this question he would always get every coaching hire right. Even Urb with his pedigree can't exactly say but yet the causal fan is able to nail it? It's just amusing to me that's all. Personally I think the best coaches out there have, at best, a ratio of something like this for a snapshot of the stand out players they get to work with: 40% of the time they developed the talent better than most coaches could have, maybe they just had a connection with the athlete that allowed each to work well together. 35% for identifying talent and maybe 25% pure luck. And that's the best coaches IMO.

And on the topic of "coaching them up" I wonder how often that is really the case or perhaps it is simply that a successful coach knows the limits of what their player can do and they just do a good job scheming around it to allow hide their weakness and showcase their talent. With Fick, I have no clue which of the 3 scenarios most accurately fits his resume. I am not qualified to say. I do think, partly he was able to have more success a few years back when he had less on his plate. No knock on him but his best days as a position coach were when he had less overall responsibilities and I don't that is a mere coincidence.

I think he is a very loyal guy who puts the team first. I think he did a great job keeping everything together during the [Mark May] storm he was head honcho. I think he is a great recruiter. I think he is being given the opportunity to get back to doing what he does best. I hope the chemistry with Ash allows this to happen. If Urb's compliments on the selfishness of Fick during this current transition are true then I applaud Fick for putting the team first. He has a ton of young talent to work with and I am excited to see what he does with it.
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With Chris Ash coming in, I think this will lighten the load for Fickell. He seemed pretty Okay when Jim Heacock was at his side to help.
I keep thinking back to the Mich / St game when we were up 24- 17 with 2 or 3 minutes left in the 4th quarter, and we almost pulled off
the interception by Roby.
Had we pulled that off, who knows what would have happened. It may have turned the game around and we go onto win. But that never happened. We came so close at certain time in that game that we could have won. So I guess its not worth talking about "water of the Damn" I feel good about Chris Ash and Larry Johnson being on board . And maybe Luke Fickell can really find himself, back to where he felt most comfortable, in coaching the way he use to. Good Luck Coach...... Go Bucks.
 
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cdiddy70 said:
Tell me about this. Specifically, the last 4 or 5 years. Maybe his reduced recruiting role will enable him to concentrate more on "developing and finding talents".
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It is posted right above.. the last 4 years as requested:
Current: Landed a few big recruits, time will tell how guys like Rakewon develop - Mike Mitchell who was a big win appears to be lost at this point - as always, the star ratings don't mean shit until, as Coop would say, "the dog bites as a pup." Perry has tons of game experience, which will only help.

2013: Ryan Shazier (I thought Perry got much better as the season progressed)
2012: Etienne Sabino, Zach Boren (what, 1-2 week(s) of prep?)
2011: Storm Klein, Andrew Sweat
2010: Brian Rolle, Ross Homan, Josh Kerr

I don't think 4-5 years ago, the corp is as bad as the perception is. 2011 the program got body slammed, and, while numbers & depth is off - there really wasn't a noticeable drop off in talent until this season. Thank Woody, it appears that our LBers won't be a weakness for very long.

Going into last season, I think most of us would have said the LBer group was our weakest area on the team. As the season progressed, and injuries added up, turned out that the LBer play wasn't the issue on D.. our safety play really fell off the table.

Interestingly, one of those two coaches is gone now.. and it isn't Fickell.. he was out recruiting kids to Ohio State as we sit here writing about him on a message board.
 
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Bleed S & G said:
It is posted right above.. the last 4 years as requested:
Current: Landed a few big recruits, time will tell how guys like Rakewon develop - Mike Mitchell who was a big win appears to be lost at this point - as always, the star ratings don't mean [Mark May] until, as Coop would say, "the dog bites as a pup." Perry has tons of game experience, which will only help.

2013: Ryan Shazier (I thought Perry got much better as the season progressed)
2012: Etienne Sabino, Zach Boren (what, 1-2 week(s) of prep?)
2011: Storm Klein, Andrew Sweat
2010: Brian Rolle, Ross Homan, Josh Kerr

I don't think 4-5 years ago, the corp is as bad as the perception is. 2011 the program got body slammed, and, while numbers & depth is off - there really wasn't a noticeable drop off in talent until this season. Thank Woody, it appears that our LBers won't be a weakness for very long.

Going into last season, I think most of us would have said the LBer group was our weakest area on the team. As the season progressed, and injuries added up, turned out that the LBer play wasn't the issue on D.. our safety play really fell off the table.

Interestingly, one of those two coaches is gone now.. and it isn't Fickell.. he was out recruiting kids to Ohio State as we sit here writing about him on a message board.
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Correct. Safety was our biggest problem and it wasn't even close. After that I would say corner was still worse then LBer. Seems like the correct coach left. With the backfield improving next year I think lb will be allowed to play faster. It would be best if Ash takes over both cb and safety next year. I have little to no faith in Combs as cb coach.
 
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BUCKYLE said:
Huh? Luke doesn't get the credit when players he has coached succeed. He only gets scorn and ridicule when a position group he doesn't coach under performs or his position group is decimated by injury and transfers. Get with it, maxblitz!
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You probably point to Kevin Colbert, or was it Tomlin, saying he got better in college? (I can't find the exact quote.) Or Tomlin saying "he has no holes", as evidence of good coaching? Or last year, teaching someone to play Mike in 3 weeks? You might be right.
 
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The amount of shit he's gotten the past couple years has been mostly undeserved. He stepped up to lead the team through a transition when far more seasoned coaches on our staff would not. Withers was just not a good fit and his cover 4 scheme was a disaster, though we really didn't have the right type of safeties to run it well at the time. The flavor of cover 3 they switched to was just as bad and could be bubble screened to oblivion. Fickell and Ash did a great job turning it around this year. I'm very confident that we will see even more improvement next season as the secondary gets more comfortable with the scheme and more of the guys we recruited with cover 4 in mind earn playing time.
 
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