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How could the Badgers 2024 season ultimately end up finishing?
The Wisconsin Badgers are fresh off the close of spring practices, so it’s the perfect time to lay down one of my classic pieces on the best, worst, and most likely paths for this squad in 2024.
Spoiler alert: the range of potential outcomes I’m about to explore is pretty wide and can take the program in very different directions heading into 2025. Buckle up.
I always love starting with this one, and in early May, the sky’s the limit for the Badgers.
Here, health is Wisconsin’s friend and, riding the wave of a mid-September upset of Alabama in Camp Randall, the Tyler Van Dyke led squad is shot from a cannon with Phil Longo’s Air Raid clicking and Mike Tressel’s rebuilt defense playing fast and aggressive.
This is a sports piece, not science fiction, so the team stumbles twice along the way—let’s say to Oregon and at Iowa—but also gives fans a tantalizing look at the impressive upside of a Luke Fickell-coached team, parlaying the better-than-expected fall into the No. 11 College Football Playoff seed.
In the Playoff, the Badgers upset No. 6 Texas before falling to No. 3 Clemson in the quarterfinals.
By any measure, this is a dream 2024 for Wisconsin and sets the table for another run in 2025.
I still have PTSD from my worst-case basketball prediction of an embarrassing first-round loss to JMU back in March, but I’ll soldier on here and do this while fully hoping from the core of my being that it doesn’t come to pass.
In this brutal path, injuries pop up at key positions (I won’t be morbid and say who, that’s just weird) and both the offense (quarterback controversy and offensive line woes) and defense (new additions not gelling) don’t make the jumps that people expected.
Under this scenario, the Badgers’ absolute grinder of a schedule morphs from resume builder to gravedigger, and the combination of Alabama, USC, Oregon, Iowa, and Penn State (and a mystery team or two), saddle the team with several painful losses and a 5-7 record, ending Wisconsin’s 22-year bowl streak and casting real doubt on Luke Fickell’s ability to take the program to where it needs to be.
This would likely be an overreaction, as five wins with the team’s 2024 schedule is actually MORE impressive than seven wins with their 2023 schedule, but the seeds of doubt would be sown, and “Fire Fick” would be a real thing that we’d need to deal with.
I went back and forth between seven and eight wins for this scenario, but settled on eight because of my belief in Fickell and his plan.
Here, the Badgers stay mostly healthy but suffer a few key injuries that test its depth throughout the season, and have a bit of an up and down (mostly up) go of it. Tyler Van Dyke is a more mature 2021 version of himself and the downfield passing game becomes a legitimate weapon to go along with a reliable ground attack with Chez Mellusi and Tawee Walker, forming one of the better 1-2 backfield punches in the Big Ten.
Wisconsin springs two upsets from this pool of very difficult games: Alabama, at USC, Penn State, Oregon, and at Iowa, but also drop one they probably shouldn’t have (e.g. at Nebraska) and ends up with an 8-4 record and a solid bowl game.
And remember, eight wins in 2024 is like 10 or 11 wins in 2023—that’s how much tougher this fall’s slate is. I will almost certainly revisit all of these after fall camp, so stay tuned.
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