Luke Fickell is eyeing former Ohio State teammate Mike Vrabel to help his Wisconsin team ahead of the 2024 season
Wisconsin could turn to former Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel for a sounding board as the Badgers enter their second season under coach Luke Fickell in 2024. Vrabel, a longtime friend of Fickell, has yet to land on his feet since being fired by the Titans. Following a second straight losing season in January. According to Fickell, this opens the door for Vrabel to provide some unofficial assistance to the Badgers at least during spring football, if not longer.
“I love Mike and want him around as much as possible,” Fickell told ESPN. “I want to see how much he’ll like to be around in the spring. And we’ll go from there.”
The relationship between Vrabel and Fickell dates back to the mid-1990s when the two were teammates at Ohio State. They also coached together on the Buckeyes staff from 2011–13 before Vrabel moved to the NFL ranks to serve as the Houston Texans defensive line coach. Vrabel later became the coach of the Titans for the 2018 season, beginning a tenure where he went 54–45 overall. He coached Tennessee to an appearance in the AFC Championship Game in 2019, before the team lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs.
The addition of Vrabel would be the latest adjustment in Madison, Wisconsin, after the Badgers struggled in Fickell’s first season. The 2023 campaign began with optimism following Fickell’s arrival from a Cincinnati program that reached the College Football Playoff under his watch in 2021, but the Badgers faltered to a 7–6 mark. Wisconsin previously announced in February that it had done so Former USC and Oklahoma defensive coordinator Alex Grinch hired To serve as the Badgers’ co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach.
Fickell’s second season will also see sweeping changes to the Big Ten landscape, as the league welcomes four new members from the Pac-12 – USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington. The Badgers travel to the Big Ten-newcomer Trojans for their conference opener on September 28, one game after hosting Alabama in a non-conference showdown.
