Sunday the University of Cincinnati fans were caught by suprise when Bearcats head coach Luke Fickell announced he will be taking the head coaching job at Wisconsin University. Wisconsin is coming off a .500 season as they prepare for their upcoming bowl game, but they saw former head coach Paul Chryst relieved of his duties earlier this season. Jim Leonhard has taken over as the interim head coach for the Badgers and did a fantastic job in the process and was becoming someone well respected around the program.
Fickell leaves the Bearcats as the all-time winningest coach where he went 57-18 in his five seasons. Fickell, completely changed the program once arriving to the University of Cincinnati in 2017, as he led the team to a 32-game home winning streak, won two AAC Championships, lead the team to the Peach Bowl in 2020 and then the College Football Playoff last year.
The Bearcats saw nine players in 2021 get drafted to the NFL, which was the third most in all of college football and that is just a testament of what Luke Fickell has built in Clifton. The program and University should be forever grateful for the impact Fickell has had on the program and really took this program to new heights since his 4-8 season back in 2018.
However, now that Fickell has moved on to Wisconsin and the contract details are slowly coming out as Pete Thamel of ESPN reported that Fickell’s deal with the Badgers is seven years for 7.9 million per year, a huge increase from the 5.1 million he was getting with the University of Cincinnati.
Cornerbacks/Special Teams coach Kerry Coombs is the interim coach currently.
Potential Candidates to replace Luke Fickell
For me 1a Deion Sanders, 1b Urban Meyer and 2. Willie Fritz (Tulane), 3. Jamey Chadwell (CCU)