Hlas: Iowa football tries to add to the natives’ restlessness in Wisconsin

When Kirk Ferentz retires as Iowa’s football coach, UI Athletic Director Beth Goetz will have no shortage of qualified applicants to replace him.

There’s nothing that says staying in-house for a successor to Ferentz is the best way to go. History is full of visionaries who switched to a different way of doing things and were wildly successful.

Netflix began with DVD rentals by mail. How quaint. Amazon originally was an online bookstore. Now, it brings everything under the sun to your doorstep. Even books.

You see Wisconsin as it gets ready to play Iowa in Madison Saturday night, however, and it’s easy to wonder why the Badgers got away from the tried-and-true template Barry Alvarez established when he became their football coach in 1990. It was still in place and working when Alvarez retired as the UW athletic director in 2021.

Everyone knows the Wisconsin offensive formula of three decades and seven Rose Bowls under Alvarez, Bret Bielema, Gary Andersen and Paul Chryst. The Badgers played great defense and pounded the ball on the ground. And pounded some more.

Ron Dayne, Melvin Gordon, Montee Ball, Jonathan Taylor. First-team All-America running backs, one and all.

The Badgers blocked. And blocked some more. They had nine offensive linemen who were first-team AP All-Americas from 1994 to 2019 and several other great ones.

As athletic directors are wont to do, Wisconsin’s Chris McIntosh chose to remake Badgers football rather than follow predecessor Alvarez. McIntosh fired Chryst after Wisconsin started 2-3 in 2022. Rather than give the job to interim head coach and former beloved Badger player Jim Leonhard after the season, McIntosh hired Luke Fickell from Cincinnati.

Fickell had made a national name for himself, going 53-10 over his last five years at Cincinnati and leading the Bearcats into the 2021 College Football Playoff when it was a four-team affair.

The change has done no one any good. The Badgers had a dozen seasons of double-digit wins between 1993 and 2019, but are 15-16 under Fickell. Their rushing game is sickly. They have lost their last seven Big Ten games, including a 42-10 embarrassment at Iowa last November.

Two weeks ago, fans at Camp Randall Stadium were booing and chanting “Fire Fickel!” after the Badgers lost at home to Maryland, 27-10.

The program with an unmistakable identity for so long now is groping for one. What will the chanting and booing be like in the fourth quarter Saturday night if the Hawkeyes have Wisconsin under their thumbs again?

So who has rallied to Fickell’s defense? The architect of Wisconsin football, Alvarez.

“I think it’s embarrassing,” Alvarez said this week on ESPN Madison radio about the chants to fire Fickell. “I think it’s terrible, despicable. They’re spoiled rotten. … They’re going to have a chance to get better, and you flip on them. We’re early in the season and you flip on them and you’re chanting for the coach (to be fired).”

Big Ten coaches don’t get canned in midseason. Well, other than Chryst three years ago. And UCLA’s DeShaun Foster last month. And Scott Frost at Nebraska in 2022. And …

That concept is foreign at Iowa. It could never occur here. Right?

Let’s say the Hawkeyes lose at Wisconsin and drop their next five games to match the Badgers’ current 7-game Big Ten losing streak. I know, I know. There’s no way that will happen. This is just rhetorical.

Repeat, this is just rhetorical. OK, so If Iowa takes a 3-8 record to Nebraska for Black Friday, that would be it. The Ferentz era would be over, and it would probably be announced before the ball is in the air in Lincoln.

That’s how devastating a 7-game Big Ten losing streak can be when you have an established program.

This is blood sport and there will be no mercy from Iowa for a wounded Wisconsin. Because if the Hawkeyes lose, that will be two straight defeats and a 3-3 record with Penn State coming in to Iowa City next week.

The hyenas would be howling here, just like they are at Penn State right now because of two straight losses. Just win, baby.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com