It’s a custom of the college football season for head coaches across the nation to meet with the media towards the beginning of the week and discuss the prior week’s matchup and preview their upcoming test. Fans are often privy to the quotes coming out of their own team’s HQ, but what about their upcoming opponents’?
Let’s take a look at some of the quotes that Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell made about the Hoosiers on Monday.
Q: You mentioned the challenge in front of you. You face some good offenses this season. Indiana is the number one scoring offense in the country. As you meet with the defense this week. What are the key talking points? Are the things you feel like you guys have to do?
FIckell: We just got to continue to build off of the things that we’ve done. You know, it’s a week in, week out, you know, opportunity for us. And there are some things that, you know, I think we’ve done a really good job of defensively. I think we’ve been more disciplined in what we’ve done. I think we’ve been sounder in what we’ve done. We’ve done a good job at eliminating the big plays. I think, you know, those kinds of things are going to have to stay intact.
We’re going to have to do a really, really good job at tackling and tackling well in space. And I think that, obviously, as explosive as they are, I think one of the best things they do is in open space and even in the box stuff that they break tackles and they create larger plays just because of it. And you know, so for us defensively, that a lot of those things, the fundamental things, are going to have to apply. But I think one of the big ones is going to be we have to tackle really well.
Q: It was a completely different situation (the last time you faced Indiana). We know what they’ve done since then. As someone who’s trying to kind of build things here, does that how quickly they’ve done it? Does that provide hope?
Fickell: I played the AAC for how many years, and the University of Cincinnati, as soon as you do something that maybe somebody hasn’t done or wants to do, then you become that, Hey, see, everybody can do it. That’s the beauty of what it is that we do. I mean, before us at Cincinnati was UCF, and then before then it was us at Cincinnati who made a run and got in the playoffs. And, you know, there’s others, but, you know, that’s what Indiana’s done the last two years. And there’s a combination of those things everybody like to know what it is. I don’t even know if you asked Coach from from within, like, pinpoint exactly what it is, but there’s a lot of things that have you know, obviously, that have gone into it. Great coaching is one of them. Great quarterback play is definitely another. But I think it gives everybody that’s what I think college football? I’m not sure want to dive into this part of it, but that’s where, you know, you think about where college football is in four years from now, just schematically, rule wise, world wise. And then you say, well, maybe it doesn’t need a change. Look what can still happen. And so, you know, whatever it is, they, they’ve, they’ve done a really, really good job, obviously, in the last few years.