Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell hopes Mike Vrabel might be round crew

Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell informed ESPN on Thursday that he is hoping to have Mike Vrabel, his greatest pal and former teammate, “round as a lot as potential” with the crew in an off-the-cuff position the upcoming season.

Vrabel was fired by the Tennessee Titans final month and didn’t land an NFL job on this 12 months’s hiring cycle. Vrabel and Fickell had been teammates at Ohio State and coached collectively there as assistants.

“I really like Mike and wish him round as a lot as potential,” Fickell informed ESPN. “I need to see how a lot he’d wish to be round, within the spring for certain. And we’ll go from there.”

Fickell joked with ESPN that he is not intimidated by Vrabel’s 6-foot-4 body, laughing as he referenced an nameless quote to The Athletic that Vrabel’s bodily presence may very well be intimidating to somebody in a company.

Fickell is a former nostril deal with at Ohio State. Vrabel performed linebacker there and the 2 have remained shut each personally and professionally since their time there within the Nineties.

It is common in school soccer and within the NFL for coaches who’re out of labor to go spend time with pals and colleagues to supply opinions and an additional set of eyes.

Fickell first talked about Vrabel’s potential presence in a radio interview this week.

“I talked to him, I believe, on Saturday, and we hadn’t communicated for in all probability per week or so simply because the method was going,” Fickell mentioned throughout an interview with ESPN Wisconsin’s “Wilde & Tausch.” “He seemed like a brand new man. And I am unsure precisely if this was his alternative, or what it’s the future appears like. However I do know that we’ll have a customer right here that is going to spend just a little little bit of time, hopefully round us. Beginning, arising within the spring and a few issues like that, see how a lot, how deep we are able to get entangled with my buddy and get him round right here.”

Fickell went 7-6 in his first season at Wisconsin. He led Cincinnati to the School Soccer Playoff in 2020.