MADISON, Wis. -- In a town where brats are a local delicacy and there's an entire cheese fridge in the airport gift shop, it's fitting that the Wisconsin offseason has been dedicated to rechanneling its caloric roots.

Two years into coach Luke Fickell's tenure with the Badgers, there's an obvious identity overhaul. They've returned to a throwback style more predicated on physical football on offense, led a veteran transfer quarterback, and imported an entire new defensive front.

"We've got the identity that fits us," Fickell said recently in his office.

After going 12-13 over two seasons and missing a bowl game in 2024 for the first time since 2001, change has been significant.

Fickell fired offensive coordinator Phil Longo and made a decision to veer away from an Air Raid offense and channel the program's beef-and-brawn roots, hiring offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes from Kansas.

There's a new quarterback in Maryland transfer Billy Edwards, who moved in early to get a jump start on the job and, unlike past years, has been declared internally as the leader of the offense.

Fickell is a former Ohio State nose tackle with a championship wrestling pedigree, so perhaps the most galling part of Wisconsin's 5-7 season and 3-6 Big Ten record was how the defensive front got beat.

Wisconsin lost five consecutive games to close the season and finished 17th in the 18-team Big Ten in rushing yards allowed. With that came a tough lesson.

"Physically, the second half of the season, we couldn't hold up," Fickell said. "And I mean that in particular on the defensive front."

He added: "It's a grown man's league. If you don't have grown men, it's going to be really, really difficult."

With a new quarterback, a hockey-like line change on the defensive line and wholesale changes on offense, Fickell reflected back on his two years at Wisconsin and looked ahead to a season with Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa on the schedule.

ESPN: Identity is the place to start here, I think. Wisconsin is going to be rechanneling its offensive identity from past eras. How has that process gone, and what's it been like now that we're near the completion of spring ball?

Fickell: I feel like it's the identity that we need, and it's not completely all the way old-school back, but I think the idea of being more multiple and truly understanding what physicality-first looks like is where we kind of came to. Whether it was Coach Grimes' philosophy or his scheme or really just his personality. I think we're in a good place. Obviously, we've got a ways to continue to grow, but I really do feel like we've got the identity that fits us, that gives us a chance to lean on our guys up front, but still be multiple enough to say, "Hey, we've got to be able to create big plays and create space and get down the field just maybe in some different ways."

ESPN: Maryland transfer quarterback Billy Edwards is obviously your highest-profile addition this offseason. Now that you've had him for three months, what should we expect from him this fall?

Fickell: He's a pro, and I think first walking in the door, we handed over the keys to him different than any of the times before. When a new guy came in, it was more like, "Hey, let's compete," knowing what you expected. Whether it was Tanner Mordecai or Tyler Van Dyke. But I thought that was a mistake from us in those two years. It didn't allow them to insert themselves as a leader, as they had to earn and kind win the job. Not that there's not competition, but from day one when he walked in, it was like, "This is the guy." He'll go compete, but he's asserted himself. He has done a great job embracing everything, whether it's getting to know the offensive line guys, getting to know the wide receivers, but even in particular getting to know the defensive guys. He's done a phenomenal job at the little things that really matter when you're a guy walking into a program knowing you're only going to be there for nine or 10 months. What's going to give you the best opportunity to make sure those guys will believe and trust in you? That's what he's done.

ESPN: A lot of times those guys come into this situation, it's hard for a quarterback to win the locker room, learn the offense and do it in a quick time frame. How have you felt his urgency for this sprint?

Fickell: It was pretty evident. When we weren't back here yet (from break), and he decided where he was going, he flew in here the next day and got an apartment, got his stuff set up when nobody was really around. He said, "Look, I want to be set, ready to roll when the players come back in." So it was one of those ones where you're like, "I think he gets it. I think he gets it." It's not just you want to get a grasp of the offense, you want to make sure that you're set in place. So he can be the first one in, and the last one to leave, because you're all set up. It's not, "I can't be there today. I got to go set up my cable or I've got somebody coming to deliver a bed." And that kind of showed me. We know what kind of football player he is, we were able to watch the film. He also understands the dynamics of winning the locker room and inserting himself as a leader.

ESPN: This is a much different era of the sport than when you coached at Cincinnati. In that job, you flipped it in the second and third seasons and set up the College Football Playoff run. Can you compare and contrast the difference, Year 3 here and Year 3 there? It feels like the sport has radically changed over that short period of time.

Fickell: It is, and I think in the first two years I was in the mindset of trying to do it the same way, continuing to build from within and keeping everybody in, as many as you could, and getting them to continue to grow and build and be who you want us to be. And I think going into Year 3 was the first time we recognized like, OK, there's some things that we have to do different, whether it's a little bit more schematically, whether it's truly size-wise defensively, which we recognized that we really had to do. And so, to start the offseason, it wasn't just, "OK, you don't have a bowl game and things like that." It was like, "OK, first let's have some really deep conversations, because there's going to have to be some changes made."

And some of the bringing new guys in was, because, for the first time we had to be a little bit more honest and say, "OK, there's some changes from within that we had to make." Whether that was everybody just looks at, well, it's the offense that you changed. There was a lot of things from within the guys that even had been here that like, OK, you probably should have recognized some things that we maybe could have done a little earlier, but the way to grow and change every bit as much of, OK, what do you need to go get from the outside that gives you a better opportunity.

ESPN: With a lot of new faces and new scheme, can you give me a state of expectation here? I would imagine there's some urgency.

Fickell: Yeah, there is. And obviously from within the building, it's all about this mountain to climb. We didn't except every (potential) transfer guy that we even had a chance to get to (buy in). Every transfer that was possibly coming in here, the first thing we did is set the schedule down in front of him to say, "Look, just want to make sure you understand what this mountain looks like." So not only emphasizing what this thing will look like, but understanding that the humble and hungry mindset and attitude has got to be (that) you're willing to do what we need to do, because it's not going to be easy. ... We know that there's going to be some peaks and valleys in this climb, but I think it's got to start from within, and that's where it's hard to say. I don't talk about the schedule a lot, but we just talk about it being a mountain to climb.

ESPN: The offense here has probably been more criticized the last two years. But the defense really kind of took step back last year, and you clearly responded to that, with seven new portal defensive linemen. Can you speak to the changes on that side of the ball?

Fickell: I'm not saying it's an oversight, but you recognize what the league is, and at the end of the day, last year, at the end of the season, the truth of the matter is whatever we were doing offensively, we couldn't stop the run. And we were very, very small defensively and we recognized that we had to make some of those changes. And the idea of getting older because this is a grown man's league, and if you don't have grown men, it's going to be really, really difficult.

Especially with, like you said, the mountain you have to climb. And so the focus came as much as anything of saying how do we get bigger and more physical in particular up front, because that's the truth of the matter. When it comes down to it, and we're 5-2 and playing Penn State and you've got Oregon after that, you really are in a decent place where you started playing better. And the truth is, at that point in time, it's when the depletion started, and whether it's a close game here or a close game there, physically the second half of the season, we couldn't hold up. And I mean that in particular on the defensive front, and that's what really cost us.

ESPN: Considering your background, I'm guessing that particular weakness offended you personally a little bit.

Fickell: It has. It does. It will. And something that you want to pride yourself on. and no scheme can override the true physicality and the mentality. And not saying that we had a great scheme, but at that point in time, where we got to by the end of the year, no scheme would've mattered.

ESPN: What did you learn the first time through the 18-team league? You've been in this league a lot of years as a player and assistant and coordinator, just curious how you viewed the experience, the travel, the changes.

Fickell: Well, the travel wasn't as big a deal to us. The grown man's league was a much bigger deal, and that's where I said if you don't get older, if you don't get more mature, I don't think you're going to be able to compete in this league. Now we all know that there are some high-end young guys that obviously can, but for the middle, for the bulk of what it is that you have to do, if you don't have grown men in this league, whether it's because of travel, whether it's because of 18 teams, whether it's because of what you're going to face week in and week out, you cannot sustain something and be your best at the end of the year. And that was completely evident to me last year, and it had nothing to do with the system or the scheme that we did offensively or the system or the scheme we worked defensively. It had to do more with a true mentality and a true overall makeup of your program.

ESPN: Other than personnel, can you give me one example of how you've addressed that here?

Fickell: Yeah, it is not just the way you train. We've always said we've trained hard. but to play against each other on a daily basis and not truly emphasize physicality over tactics. You can preach until you are blue in the face, and I just think that's where it was hard with the alignment of how we truly were playing offensively with what we wanted to be defensively, and what we wanted to pride ourselves on. And so you can preach all those things, but if you don't live it on a daily basis, it's really hard to grow in those areas and it has nothing to do with the way we train, it to me had to be a little bit more to do with the true mentality of what we said and showed was really important to be successful.

ESPN: So looking out over the stadium here, Wisconsin is now I think a different job in this modern era maybe than it was in Big Ten West. What is the future of Wisconsin football here as everything changes in this sport?

Fickell: We're trying to figure it out. I've said it to our guys, many of the times, it's not the Big Ten West. And I'm not sure if some of them understand that because there's a lot of newer guys here. But the older ones have to understand, we said it at the end of the season. If this isn't what you signed up for, then it's probably not the right thing if you signed up and recognize it wasn't the Big Ten West. Our league has changed, this landscape has changed and, unfortunately, we didn't change enough to put ourselves in a position that we've been relevant. And so for us to get back to being what Wisconsin was, not a winner of the West, but somebody that's obviously relevant year in and year out, that sets themselves apart with some of the ways in which they play, and they're not just trying to be maybe what everybody else is, or what everybody thinks a college football team and a top 10 college football team should look like.

ESPN: Your right tackle, Riley Mahlman, appears set to be one of the faces of the program, right? He's a big Wisconsin tackle from yesteryear. Walk me through a little bit some of the faces who will define this new identity of Wisconsin.

Fickell: So I mean, again, it gives us a chance to put a little bit more pressure on those guys. And I mean that we ran the ball, we were 50-50, but the truth of the matter is in the system we were in -- some of those spread Air Raid systems -- is very simple to the guys up front and that's one of their philosophies. It's simple. We run this. We run that. Our guys don't want to be simple. Our guys want to have more on their plate. Just the nature of the offensive linemen here. And for us to be able to rely on those guys, and to when things aren't going well, your quarterback gets hurt, so what do you, you put more onto your offensive line, which is where your strength is in that system. We weren't able to do that. To be able to do that a little bit more in an NFL system where regardless of what the game is, we can put a little bit more onto our offensive line, whether that's Riley Mahlman or that's Joe Brunner, who to me are the faces of who we are. It's going to give those guys a little bit more ownership to say, "You know what? This is on us in a lot of ways." And so you still have to have balance, and you still got to be able to do all the things that we've grown to do, but I think it gives us a chance to put more onto the faces up front to say, "Hey, there's more on your guys' plate, and we're going to give you some advantages too." To much is given, much more as expected.