The Wisconsin Sportscast

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Mike Lucas and Tom Oates go over the Green Bay Packers’ playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers. Oates says the Packers outplayed the heavily-favored 49ers most of the game. Even so, mistakes were made. “The missed opportunities later in the game really hurt. The fourth-and-1. The missed field goal. The two interceptions, one of which was a bad throw and one of which was a bad decision,” says Oates, the former Wisconsin State Journal sports columnist. “Those hurt the most because the game was being decided at that point.”  Lucas just wishes the NFL would figure out how to spot a ball correctly. “This still boggles most people’s minds, that we’re in 2024 and they don’t have a better system or measurement,” says Lucas, a Cap Times sports freelance writer and former radio color analyst for the Badgers. “Couldn’t they set something up like Wimbledon? Where they have the technology so you know if the ball is in or out. Then show it on the screen. Wouldn’t that be the same thing?” Lucas and Oates also think the Packers are in need of a coaching shakeup next season.  “If it was my choice, I’d say thank you (to Joe Barry) for the way his defense played late in the year,” says Lucas. “And then I’d find another defensive coordinator.” Finally, the veteran journalists give their Super Bowl picks. Neither think Kansas City will make it but they both like Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.  “He’s a difference maker like Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers in their prime,” says Oates.  “He’s the Max Klesmit of the NFL!” declares Lucas.”  The Wisconsin Sportscast is a Cap Times podcast featuring two of the state's most experienced sports journalists. It’s produced by Dylan Brogan. Find The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the boys battle colds as Indiana takes home the College Football National Championship in a victory Monday night over Miami. Curt Cignetti did the impossible by taking his team 16-0, and all it took was the backing of some of the biggest billionaires around. This is the new order of college football; gone are the days that players look for college culture, or facilities, or anything else. Now the only question they’re asking is “how much NIL will I get?” Can we still be happy for the players and coaches? Of course. But is this new order better? That’s for you to judge.  There were several products of Wisconsin on Indiana’s championship team, including a few former Badgers. There have been plenty of guys in recent years who just “didn’t fit” in Madison who went on to do some big things around college football. Meanwhile, Luke Fickell is looking for his third offensive line coach in four years. But still, Fickell is changing tactics once again this year. Air raid is gone, and whatever they did last year is gone too. Now, it’s time for full use of the transfer portal. Will it work? That depends, can Fickell build up team culture fast like Cignetti? After all, gone are the days of building team chemistry over the course of a few years. Now, you hope that someone else develops someone so you can scoop them up and hope for the best. But if Monday told us anything, it’s that Wisconsin is just one big benefactor away from a national championship. Well, maybe a few benefactors.  Meanwhile in the NFL, Jeff Hafley is officially the new head coach of the Miami Dolphins. That means that a newly resigned Matt LaFleur needs to find a new defensive coordinator. Several names have already been thrown out there and there is one name that a lot of Wisconsin sports fans hope is the winner. Jim Leonard certainly would like to return to his home in Wisconsin, even if he did turn down a job in Green Bay once upon a time. Another name thrown around is Raheem Morris, former head coach for the Falcons. He and LaFleur are friends, and he’s well respected around the league. Or maybe they’ll find someone in-house they can promote up to the position. Whoever they go with, if Saturday is any indication their first order of business should be to find a way to stop Caleb Williams and those big passes of his…  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, in the wake of the Packers loss to the Bears on Saturday night, there is just one name on every Wisconsin sports fan's mind: Matt LaFleur. As of recording, he is still with the team and discussing his future. Around the league there are nine openings for head coaching positions, and a lot of Packers fans wish there were 10. But Oates asks a real question before jumping right to firing: can you upgrade from Matt LaFleur? Especially with the amount of competition out there right now, a true upgrade might be out of the Packers pay range. A solution that works for both Lucas and Oates? Give LaFleur a one year contract extension. That way next year he isn’t a lame duck coach and he will have to really prove that he deserves to be there. The Packers have about two or three years to get over this hump, given the contract position for a lot of key players on the team. If it isn’t LaFleur, someone will need to figure out how to get them there and winning playoff games. Saturday’s loss to the Bears was exactly like their loss last year in Philly, a dominating first half and a complete fall apart in the second. The phrase of the day is “lack of adjustment.” Sure, it’s a cliche thing for sports fans to say when their team does badly, but when even the players are saying it after the game it starts to mean something. On defense they just shut down, and on offense the offensive line was unable to adapt to the changes that the Bears made after halftime. Part of the issue is that LaFleur is so caught up on calling plays on offense that he forgets to pay attention to what’s happening with the rest of the team. His nose is so buried in his iPad that there was even footage of him sitting on the bench while his defense was on the field going over plays. Maybe LaFleur needs a real offensive coordinator who he can let call plays instead, if he’ll give it up. After all, it seems likely he’ll be replacing his defensive coordinator anyways.  Finally in college basketball, the Badgers scored a huge win over the previously-undefeated Michigan Saturday night. Now as of recording they had not played Minnesota, but on Saturday the team was really able to showcase their improvements as a team. There were a lot of new guys on the floor to start the season, and those new guys took some time to learn the systems in place. But now it looks like they’re starting to get it and are open to being coached. If they can beat all the talent that Michigan has, then their ceiling just skyrocketed.  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Lucas and Oates’ wishes last week were granted as the Badgers sign Colton Joseph from Old Dominion. From what we’ve seen, Joseph is a good dual-threat quarterback who had great success in the Sun Belt. He’s seen as a better runner than passer, which does cause a little worry, but he has shown that he can get the ball down field when he needs to. Plus, his running power should fit in nicely with the Badgers’ offense.  Now if only Joseph can stay healthy. He isn’t the first quarterback to come to Madison with some hype behind him in recent years, and all of those other guys fell to injury. But if Joseph lives up to his billing, he should be a good addition for UW-Madison. At least he’ll be paid like it; it’s estimated that most college quarterbacks these days are making between $1.5-4 million dollars. That’s enough that a lot of young guys are looking to stick around in college for as long as possible. All but a select few quarterbacks across the country can never expect that kind of money in the NFL. But still, as long as Joseph plays better than Clayton Tune, it’ll at least be something. Speaking of the now former Packer, Green Bay will get a big rematch against the Bears in Chicago on Saturday night in the first round of the playoffs. The Packers-Bears rivalry has been going on for longer than any of us have been alive, and historically one team tends to dominate the other for decades at a time. But that might be changing; the Packers are still a good football team and the Bears seem to be catching up. Saturday’s game should be a testament to that as Lucas and Oates see no clear favorite between the two. On the one hand the Packers are a better team, but they have a tendency to lose in the worst ways and are riddled with big injuries. On the other hand, the Bears are healthy and Caleb Williams is on his way to becoming a great quarterback, but their defense is hopeless. Either way, it’s a good thing the game is on Saturday night instead of Sunday so that both states can safely get to work on Monday morning…  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, we end the year with a few questions. Where is Rashan Gary? Where are the punts? Where will Malik Willis go? And of course, are the Packers a good football team? We can start with Gary, who’s been M.I.A. for a while now and is turning into more than a bit of a disappointment. It’s been months since he recorded his last snap and he seems to simply lag behind most plays. We’ve seen him show some great skill, and we know he’s a workout warrior, so what happened? Unfortunately, we might not know by the end of the season. The next question is about the punting situation. The Packers are now the first team in the history of the Super Bowl era to lose three games without punting the ball in a single season. In fact, every other team that has gone an entire game without punting has been winning this year; the Packers hold the three puntless losses in the league. This spells all sorts of issues for Green Bay, from ineffectiveness in the red zone leading to field goals instead of touchdowns, failures to perform in fourth-and-one situations, and a defense that just isn’t coming in clutch.  Finally, as we come up on the final regular season game against the Vikings on Sunday, we reach the final question: are the Packers a good football team? They were at one point, thinks Oates, but today it’s hard to say. The Packers have been hit too hard by injuries this year, especially in their real difference maker players. Losing Parsons especially has seemed to deal a major blow to the defense (though that can’t excuse everything), and the offensive line has been rattled all year. The season isn’t over, and they have a guaranteed chance in the playoff, but if they don’t go on to win even one playoff game, a few people’s jobs might be in trouble… Meanwhile, the college football playoffs begin in earnest this week without the Wisconsin Badgers. Remember the days of going down to Tampa to watch the Badgers play around this time of year? Hopefully those days can return in the future, but it won’t be with Billy Edwards Jr. He announced his entry into the transfer portal, which officially opens on January 2. Our two big wishes for 2026? The Badgers need to learn how to run the football again, and they need to figure out their quarterback situation.  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Packers saw not one but two of the quarterbacks hurt after Saturday’s loss to the Bears. Jordan Love went down with a concussion thanks to a big helmet-to-helmet hit while Malik Willis hurt his shoulder trying to throw a pass at the end of regulation. Matt LaFluer’s decision to have Willis throw the ball with 17 seconds left in the second half will go down as just another terrible call. He had 80 yards to go and he was left exposed. That call was based solely on emotion; the rational call there would have been to take a knee and try to go during overtime. Instead, he’s questionable and as of Tuesday Love is still in concussion protocol. Could Love be cleared in time to face the Ravens Saturday night? Maybe. But if not, who are we going to trust to throw the ball, Clayton Tune?  The two injuries were not what killed the Packers on Saturday, but a series of bad mistakes made by a number of big name players. There was Romeo Doubs’ fumble of the onside kick, a fumble that if avoided would have meant a win for the Packers. Instead, Doubs took his eyes off the ball to look at who was coming at him and flinched. Then there was Josh Jacob’s fumble with just a few yards to go before a touchdown. Or Xavier McKinney’s should-have-been-but-wasn’t interception. Some credit should be given to the Bears, who did pull out a win. But when you look at the numbers, Caleb Williams did not play his best ball up until the final two drives of the game. But don’t worry, if the season were to end today there would be one more rubber match as Green Bay would be set to take on the Bears in the postseason.  Meanwhile at the Kohl Center, the Badgers Men’s Basketball team took Central Michigan to task on Monday night, but that isn’t much to write home about. There are still some out there that are skeptical of the Badgers this year, and those people are valid. When they play against weak teams, they tend to dominate, but when they go up against real competition they struggle to even be in the same league. That’s an issue, considering they have some tough Big 10 games on the horizon. They’ll start at home with Purdue and UCLA before traveling to take on Michigan. There are plenty of good players on the team, though, they just have to find a way to mesh and put things together.  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, there are two words on the lips of every Wisconsin sports fan today: Micah Parsons. Parsons went down Sunday against the Broncos and tore his ACL in a noncontact injury. Oates could tell it was bad right away; there have been enough noncontact leg injuries in recent years to be able to tell pretty quickly what’s wrong. He was on track to potentially being named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year, says Oates, and his loss will be felt for the rest of the season. Parsons is a consistent force of a player that offenses need to plan around and works to elevate the entire defense. With him out of the picture, someone’s going to need to step up. Who will that be? Hard to say, but Jeff Hafley is going to need to get creative on defence against the Bears on Saturday… As for the rest of the game, which saw the Packers lose to the Broncos, it wasn’t too much prettier. On top of the many big names who were also injured, albeit less seriously, Green Bay just didn’t seem to show much force in the second half. Both cornerbacks failed to do anything, Oates says, before or after Parsons got hurt. Jordan Love was especially troubling, especially in the fourth quarter. They had plenty of chances to get back in the game, but nothing ever materialized. Yes, they were up against a great defense, but once Christian Watson went down it seemed like the entire offense went down with him. One good thing to note from Sunday is Jayden Reed and Matthew Golden , who were able to make a bit of difference after slow seasons due to injuries. Is it time for Golden to step up and start really producing? Lucas thinks he might. In some more poor Wisconsin sports news, the Badgers Men’s Basketball team had a disaster of a game against Nebraska this weekend. The Cornhuskers are slept on this year, and losing to them shouldn’t bring too much shame. Losing to them by 30 points, however, does. On top of having not figured out their admittedly difficult defense, the Badgers simply looked soft against Nebraska. That does not bode well for when they take on the highly physical Big 10 teams on their schedule.  Finally, some kudos is due to Kelly Sheffield and the Badgers Volleyball team, who are heading to the Final Four once again. The entire team seems to really be enjoying playing the sport and playing with each other, and that enthusiasm rubs off on the fans. They’ll be playing Thursday night against Kentucky, and as they say, they refuse to… well… lose.  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the brackets for the college football playoffs have been released and have been creating just a little buzz. Specifically, the inclusion of James Madison and Tulane has people a little confused. Tulane? Over Notre Dame? It’s all litigation, says Oates, between the entire selection committee. If you want to have a playoff system like this, everyone needs to be on board. To get everyone on board, you need to throw a few carrots sometimes. Does anyone really want to see either of these schools play in these playoff games? Not really, especially considering Tulane will be playing Ole Miss for the second time this season. Tulane got beat 45-10 in that matchup, by the way. The college football playoffs aren't like the big college basketball bracket, there just isn’t space for teams like this to be getting in over teams like Notre Dame. Will this lead to a 16 team bracket in the future? Probably, Oates thinks, but in the meantime Notre Dame is even going so far as to skip a bowl game this year and instead focus on next season.  Meanwhile in the NFL, the Packers beat the Bears on Sunday in what turned into a really entertaining game. Christian Watson is proving himself to be a real difference maker for the Packers’ offense; his size and speed have decidedly turned him into Green Bay’s number one receiver. It was a game that was all won on big plays, not just from Watson but from Keisean Nixon’s interception to end the game and from some really important plays from Jayden Reed. The Packers are starting to build themselves into a team of truly dynamic players, a rarity in the league. Watson, Reed, and Parsons all create an incredible impact whenever they are on the field. This is all not to say the Bears didn’t also play good football, especially in the second half. Caleb Williams is proving himself to be a pretty good quarterback. Sure he’s young and makes mistakes, but if he gets out of the pocket, Oates sees a young Aaron Rodgers. Next week the Packers will  have an even tougher game against the Broncos. With their tough defense and their mile-high stadium, the Packers will have an uphill battle on Sunday. Finally, the Badgers Men’s Basketball team took out Marquette this past weekend in a truly decisive victory. Shaka Smart was betting on his ability to not utilize the transfer portal, which while admirable didn’t really pan out. The Badgers will head to Nebraska next for what will be a really tough game. But the Badgers are starting to form a really tight team, as not only are the players finding their roles but Greg Gard is too. He’s been great at recognizing what will help the team the most and moving guys into positions where they can really thrive. Combine their three great perimeter guys and a group of young bigs, and the Badgers might have more than a few difference makers on the team this year.  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Packers are getting ready to take on the Bears this Sunday in Green Bay. While we are still in early December, the Bears are somehow sitting at the top of the NFC. Who would have thought at the beginning of the season that the Bears and the Patriots would be the top teams in football this year? If the playoffs started today, they would be getting a bye while the Packers would take on the Eagles. But the playoffs are not starting today, and before we get to that point the Packers and Bears will face each other twice.The Bears are winning games against hard-to-beat teams, but at the end of the day Oates doesn’t think they’ll be on top for the rest of the season. Caleb Williams has been doing alright for himself under Ben Johnson, especially considering the Bears’ long history of squandering quarterbacks, and the Bears have a decent running game. But Jordan Love showed some really great stuff against the Lions last week, while LaFleur made some gutsy calls that paid off. While losing Devonte Wyatt is a big loss, says Oates, they’ll still put up a good fight against Chicago. Meanwhile in Minneapolis, the Badgers ended their season on a whimper of a loss. The axe will stay in Minnesota for another year, it seems. This year racked up very few wins with an offense that’s at the bottom of the pile. They garnered a little bit of good will after a few wins, but they lost it all on Saturday once again. Oates has a big statement to make: Luke Fickell has botched up the two most important things in college football - the quarterback and the offense. Why wasn’t Carter Smith utilized more in the second half on Saturday? We can say that it’s because we don’t know how well he does passing back from the pocket, but still.  Finally, the Badgers men’s basketball team will make their Big 10 debut this season on Wednesday night when they take on Northwestern. They showed a few weaknesses against TCU last week, mostly in their inability to react when under defensive pressure. But after Northwestern comes Marquette in a Saturday afternoon game. Marquette coach Shaka Smart has a philosophy not to use the transfer portal too much, a move which is respected by Oates. But it might still kill the team, as it is vital to college basketball today. Either way, it’s always an exciting game when Wisconsin takes on Marquette.  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Packers are coming off a victory over a weak-looking Vikings to take part in a time-honored tradition: facing the Lions in Detroit on Thanksgiving Day. It is, at this point, a staple for late November. We can’t even remember when it started. It was a yearly thing until around 1962, when Lombardi’s Packers were probably the best they’ve been in history. They won every game that year but one: the Lions on Thanksgiving. 10 Hall of Famers were on that 62 team! And while the number of Bart Starr sacks is still debated, it did have one effect: Lombardi decided to put an end to the tradition. For a while. These days, while the Packers and Lions don’t play every year, it’s regular enough. The Lions’ fans have made a tradition of showing up loud, likely before going home for the turkey, and how are we to deny that. The Packers dominated the Lions earlier this year, but Oates says don’t count on that happening again on Thursday. That said, the Lions haven’t been playing their greatest in recent weeks. Their o-line has taken a turn for the worse, and their defense is not looking great either. Add in a few unfortunate injuries to Lions’ skills players and Detroit is definitely beatable. It will, however, be a tougher game for the Packers than their victory over the Vikings on Sunday. JJ McCarthy might be something in the future, and it’s still too early to make any real decisions on who he is as a player, but he certainly is not up to snuff quite yet. That said, it’s important to remember how Jordan Love played in the first half of 2023… Turning to Madison, fans stormed Camp Randall field once again on Saturday as the Badgers beat the ranked Illinois. Fans will react to anything at this point in the year; they went from nothing but doom and gloom to a little bit of a spark of improvement. They’ve been playing tough football for a few weeks now and it’s starting to pay off. Carter Smith is starting to show a little bit more of his stuff, and while he is still a freshman he has shown immense growth over the past few weeks. The question now is: can he continue to show growth against Minnesota and help the Badgers take the axe on Saturday? The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Badgers take on Illinois in Camp Randall on Saturday evening, in a game that’ll bring some familiar faces to the field. On top of the handful of defensive players and some assistants too, most everyone will recognize Bret Bielema standing as Illinois’ head coach. He’s done pretty well for himself in Illinois, and even with that history this is still not going to be seen as a rivalry game. Why is that? In professional sports, it’s always a big deal when Wisconsin takes on Illinois, but not in college and especially not in football. There might be some individual squabbles, sure, but at this point Northwestern is seen as more of a rival than Illinois.  Saturday’s game will be the first Wisconsin-Illinois game in Madison since 2022, when the Badgers played a miserable second half and Paul Chryst got sacked the next day. Think that’ll be on Fickell’s mind? Probably not, especially as it seems he might have saved his job. Yes, they lost badly to Indianna, but the team played hard. Pair that with the win over Washington (and the handful of votes of confidence), and we can be sure that Fickell will be back as head coach next year. The real question will be: is Carter Smith going to be the future of the program? It’s too early to say, says Oates, but we’ll know more in these last two games. One thing we know for sure is that he shows promise and we still don’t know anything about Billy Edwards anyways. The Packers, meanwhile, got a tight win over the Giants on Sunday. The game was tighter than it should have been, but don’t put that on Jordan Love. He played pretty well, says Lucas, especially in the game-winning drive. Most of his missed passes were actually drops thanks to the young receiving core the Packers still struggle with. If Love could just learn how to slide, and when, maybe he’d be seen more for the quarterback that he is.  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Packers lost to the Eagles on Monday night in a frustrating game that might have Matt LaFleur and Jordan Love get the same treatment as Luke Fickell in recent weeks. Is a vote of confidence needed? And if so, for who? The offense was awful, both on Monday and in recent weeks. A troubling trend has emerged where the Packers seem completely unable to score in the first half of any game. Oates says it’s because teams are starting to get a handle on what the Packers offense is going to do every play. That’s hard to argue when the Eagles defense yells out exactly where they’re going to run the ball, and then the Packers run it right where they said they would. If the defense calls out exactly what you’re going to do, why would you not take a timeout and make a change? Whether that falls on LaFleur or on Love, one thing is for certain: this offense isn’t working. The national pundits want LaFleur to take the handcuffs off of his quarterback and see what he can do, and Oates agrees. Love has regressed in recent weeks, and is making more and more bad decisions. But LaFleur has this notion that offense needs to be all about the running game, and he forces it to the point where Love is barely a factor. Sure, he can make some bad decisions and he has his good throws and bad throws, but something has to change. Oates thinks the Packers need to leave their gameplan every once in a while and just let Love take the reins and go. It’s not like we’re scoring points now anyways!  In a surprising twist, the Badgers were the football team to score a big win in Wisconsin this weekend, taking down Washington on Saturday night. It was such a big win that fans stormed the field, and while some people might turn their nose up as some behavior, at least the fans are engaged. After the season that Badgers have had, a win against a ranked opponent is more than enough reason to celebrate. Not that Madison was without its issues; it’s never good when your punter has the most passing yards of the game. But the freshman Carter Smith looked good, Oates says, and we shouldn’t judge his passing ability on his performance on Saturday. What he did show is that he can run and he can show aggressiveness. We hope to see more of the young freshmen this weekend!  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Lucas and Oates spend some time looking at how Badger’s athletics has changed over the years before diving into the mess the Packers made on Sunday. There have been Fire Fickell chants for a while, and now those chants are switching to Fire LaFleur. Both he and Jordan Love had an awful day on Sunday as both of them seemed to be making bad decisions all day. On LaFleur’s end, why would he go for big points with 12 minutes left in the 4th instead of just taking the field goal? On Love’s end, why is he throwing 50 yards downfield to someone with three defenders on him on a first down? Love is, and continues to be, a great quarterback, and is the future of the program. But he has a tendency to make some questionable decisions, especially when he’s up against the clock. That said, LaFleur seems to want to run the ball as much as possible instead of letting his great quarterback throw the ball. The team was simply not ready to play on Sunday. Did LaFleur underestimate the Panthers? Who knows.  LaFleur seems to act like he has a Super Bowl caliber team at all times, even though they aren’t playing like it. Oates says that yes, the roster itself is capable of a Super Bowl, but there are a handful of Super Bowl rosters in the league right now. And while the roster might be there, they aren’t playing up to snuff. Penalties are killing them, especially holding and motion penalties. These sorts of stupid mistakes are costing the team in a real way, and while they show some signs of greatness here and there they still fall to teams they should easily beat. It’s hard to blame great players every week, which means that the blame has to fall to LaFleur.  Meanwhile, the Badgers look likely to start a freshman quarterback on Saturday when they take on the Washington Huskies. Carter Smith is a freshman from Florida, and at this point why not play him. It’s not like the job is getting done on the field anyways, worse comes to worse it’s more of the same. We don’t know too much about Smith, but we hear from his coaches in Florida that he’s a dual-threat who can run the ball. We’ll see on Saturday if he can actually live up to that. The real question is: does Luke Fickell know anything about his quarterbacks? Why hasn’t he been playing already? Was it to save a red shirt year? And where’s Billy Edwards? We wish Carter Smith the best, because anything else can’t be worse than what the Badgers are already dealing with. And if he does perform well, that could give the team some momentum through the end of the season and beyond.  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Oates lasted all the way until the 17th inning during the marathon Game Three of the World Series on Monday. 19 pitchers hit the mound between both teams, throwing over 600 pitches over the course of six plus hours. The game was long, Lucas says, but it also cements Shohei Ohtani as maybe the greatest baseball player ever. He was getting the Barry Bonds treatment, drawing four intentional walks, but still delivered a great performance. Did the marathon of a game convince Oates that baserunners in extra innings is a good idea? Of course not. Meanwhile, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Steelers on Sunday night as Jordan Love played possibly the best game of his life against his former mentor. Sure, the Steelers defense wasn’t the most impressive thing in the world, but he showed significant growth on Sunday night. Love was patient and calm under the pressure of an intense pass rush, and if he continues to play like that the Packers will be in excellent shape. Especially if Love can continue to work with Tucker Kraft, who very well might be the best tight end in football today. Combine him with a returning Christian Watson and the Packers looked mighty tough Sunday night. The Packers play the Panthers this upcoming Sunday before taking on the Eagles in Monday Night Football. A win against the Eagles in November might prove to be very important come playoff time this year… Sticking with football, the Badgers fell again to Oregon on Saturday. At least this time they managed to actually score a touchdown. The defense actually played pretty well, Oates thinks, effectively shutting down the Oregon defense during the first half. They played tough and competitive, but how many times have we said that this year? The offense looked about as bad as they have been, and they are unable to move the ball either on the ground or in the air. Hunter Simmons has shown himself to be completely overmatched at this level, and Lucas and Oates both think it’s time for a change. Billy Edwards’ future is still uncertain, but why Simmons is still playing over Danny O’Neil is completely unknown. Do the Badgers have a chance at any viable wins left this year? Likely not against Washington or Indianna, but Illinois? Minnesota? Anybody?  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Wisconsin Athletic Director Chris McIntosh has issued a vote of confidence for Badger’s Football Coach Luke Fickell. Is it usually a good thing when you have to give a vote of confidence to your head coach in a public letter to the fans? In the letter that was too long and gave too little specifics, McIntosh promised to pour more resources into the football program in Madison. Which makes you ask the question: how? If you ask any other athletic program in Madison, you’ll hear how every penny is already going to the football program that continues to falter. The letter is being panned by just about everyone, and the whole thing feels desperate. What are people supposed to take away from this letter? Do you really think that anyone is going to open up their wallets after they got shut out two weeks in a row, for the first time since 1977? At least these days, the players aren’t going off to try and fight the fans after the game… People are starting to tune out of Badgers football. They aren’t renewing their season tickets, and why should they if this is what they can expect again next year? Despite the best efforts of the players, who did give their best effort on Saturday, the student section never filled up. The only reason students go to games now is to Jump Around and boo. Madison is not used to this sort of uncompetitiveness and the benefit of the doubt is running out. If we can give Fickell one thing it’s how he’s been able to handle the media. He isn’t shying away from questions like some coaches in the past, and he isn’t lashing out at the media when they ask tough questions. At the end of the day, Oates says that Fickell will not be the one to turn this program around.  It’s a stark contrast to look at schools like Vanderbilt and Indiana, who are succeeding this year while the Badgers continue to fall. There is actually a pretty easy answer to why that is, Oates says: money. In the era of NIL, the things that used to matter like facilities, tv appearances, tradition, and even academics don’t matter to the players anymore. What matters is which school has the biggest billionaire behind them who’s willing to write the biggest check. It almost sounds like another sport that Wisconsin sports fans are all too familiar with this past week…  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Oates is away on business so Lucas is joined by the voice of the Wisconsin Badgers: Mike Mahke! Mike has been the voice of Camp Randall and the Kohl Center for decades, and continued to do his job even during the Badgers’ dumbfounding defeat by Iowa on Saturday. The game started on a high note, with Monte Ball being honored for his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. Surely at least a few fans were wondering if he still had any years of eligibility left in him… When calling a game like Saturday, Mike says it’s not always as hard as it seems, though it is less fun. He’s there to do a job, he says, and will continue to provide information and optimism in even the toughest times. After Saturday’s loss to Iowa, many fans are feeling both angry and sad, with some even beginning to tune out. Early in the game on Saturday, Mike says that everyone in those stands wanted to be there and were pulling for a competitive victory. But as the game went on and the opportunities began to slip away, he could feel it. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to tune out, Mike says. Badger fans are fans through thick and thin, and need to stay behind their team. At the very least, they should follow what Luke Fickell has to say: be mad at the coach but not at the players on the field.  Next weekend, the Badgers take on Ohio State at home. It’ll be a tough fight, Mike thinks, specifically for the Badgers’ defense. They’ll need to do more that they showed against Iowa if they want to have any chance of slowing Ohio State. But if you’re still looking for a reason to go on Saturday, there will be a special celebration for the Badgers’ Rose Bowl winning teams, especially for Ron Dayne and Barry Alvarez. Who knows, there might even be a Ron Dayne call echoing through Camp Randall once again…  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Joe Flacco didn’t seem to get enough of the Green Bay Packers. Earlier this week he was traded from the Browns over to the Bengals, who happen to face the Packers this Sunday. The Browns gain a 5th round draft pick in 2026, and the Bengals get a replacement for the injured Joe Burrow, which seems like a pretty good trade. He seems likely to play against the Packers again this weekend, can he beat the Packers a second time? Maybe, but that all depends on if you thought it was him who beat the Packers the first time a few weeks ago. Flacco was awful when the Browns beat the Packers, and has only a 58% completion rate this season with six interceptions. If the Packers can put pressure on him, he should be dead in the water. At 40 years old, he can’t run even if he still does have a good arm. The Packers should be able to beat the Bengals this weekend, and after that have a good stretch ahead of them: Arizona, then Pittsburg, then Carolina, then the Eagles. It’s not unreasonable to expect them to go four-for-four in that stretch! At the very least, they better rack up at least three wins in that stretch.  In college football, the Badgers stunk it up once again in their loss against Michigan. They had two good drives all game: their first drive where they got a touchdown and their last drive where they got a field goal. But the sloppy play wasn’t the biggest concern on Saturday, it was Luke Fickell’s “strategy.” Not even the TV experts could understand why he wouldn’t take a timeout at the end of the game. Oates has two theories. One is the answer given by Fickell, that it was a strategy that failed big time. The other theory is what many fans, including Oates, think actually happened: Fickell waved the white flag to prevent Michigan from running up the score. Fans are upset, as they should be, with Joe Klatt loudly calling the “strategy” a bad look to the entire nation. This weekend they play Iowa, in what both should be and needs to be a win. Finally, as of recording on Tuesday the Brewers have taken the first two games in their NLDS series against the Cubs. The Miz left his sloppy slump to give an electric performance on the mound during a bullpen game that saw him pitching for three innings. In those three innings, he threw 31 pitches at 100 mph or higher, capping out at 104.3! The Brewers used him exactly how they needed to use him, Oates says. He isn’t ready as a playoff starter, but letting him do his thing for a few innings here and there worked to throw the Cubs off their game. But the real dagger on Monday wasn’t the Miz, it was Andrew Vaughn’s three-run homer in the bottom of the first. The Cubs still have a chance to turn things around, so the Brewers can’t slow down, but Monday’s game seemed to put a real stamp on the entire Cubs organization. The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Packers reached a tie against the Cowboys late Sunday evening, which makes us ask the question: why even have ties in the NFL? The league says it’s to promote “the health of the athletes,” but Oates isn’t buying it. After all, if that were true, they wouldn’t be trying to add more games onto each season. The changes to how overtime works are nothing but grandstanding by the NFL, Oates says, and ultimately doesn’t make much sense. Sure, college overtime rules aren’t too much better and nobody wants to see a field goal competition to end a game. What they should do, Lucas thinks, is have a 10 minute quarter and if there is no winner at 10 minutes keep going until it is no longer a tie. Or, better yet, just play one 15 minute quarter! Tie notwithstanding, Sunday was a horrible night for the Packers across the board. Starting with clock management, there were issues across the entire game. It really makes you wonder if the Packers weren’t so aggressive at the end of the first half and gave up a touchdown what the rest of the game would have looked like. It’s an outstanding problem with Matt LaFleur, says Oates: he’s aggressive when he needs to be passive and passive when he needs to be aggressive. Just look at the field goal that brought the game to a tie. Turning to the defense, the Packers should not have allowed the Cowboys to run up the score the way they did. There was no pass rush outside of Micah Parsons, and the secondary was terrible throughout the entire game outside of Keisean Nixon. Where was the blitzing? Dak Prescott might not be a grade-A quarterback, but he is a veteran who if left alone all day will find somewhere to throw the ball. Finally, the special teams once again proved to be a major problem. The Packers have a bye week this week followed by a game against the Bengals in Green Bay, which better be a glorified bye week again. Turning quickly to college football, the Badgers will come off their own bye week to take on Michigan this Saturday. They enter the game the underdogs by a good margin, if you believe the point spread, but Oates thinks it might be more complicated than that. Michigan has a young quarterback who might be able to be exploited if Madison’s defence does their job correctly. Either way, you should be able to expect a good effort out of the Badgers this weekend, and hopefully Michigan decides to take them lightly. Finally, postseason baseball is here with the Brewers sitting with more wins than anyone in baseball. They’ll play  someone this weekend, the question becomes who? Both the Padres and the Cubs are good and basically equal in both hitting and pitching. Either way, it’ll be a tough series against a team that currently has the season on the Brewers. One thing is for sure though. Whoever we face won’t have the top payroll in all of the MLB. That team couldn’t even make the playoffs… The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Badgers lost a must-win game against Maryland on Saturday, causing the fans to act in a way that has some people a bit perturbed. Boos were loud in Camp Randall, and with half the stadium gone in the fourth quarter the “Fire Fickell” chants were also loud. Lucas and Oates agree that the Fire Fickell chants were uncalled for, but they also don’t love how former Athletic Director and Badger Football Coach Barry Alvarez reacted to the calls. On his radio show earlier this week, he said that the fans are spoiled rotten, and it's disrespectful to flip on the team this early in the season. He did walk back his tone a little bit, and Oates doesn’t disagree with the sentiment behind the statements, but he also doesn’t think it’s doing anything to help the program when people are already tuning out. There was a lot of blame going around, along with votes of confidence for those being blamed, but Lucas returns to an old question: can you boo college athletes? In the past, he says no. Once upon a time college athletes were still student athletes doing their best. But in today’s game, these players are getting paid not insignificant amounts of money. That makes them pros, and open to boos. Who can blame the fans for booing a professional player who they don’t even know? It’s not like the old days where you could watch a player grow over the course of four years; today’s college athletes are staying for a year or maybe two then moving to where the money is. Would Lucas boo? No, but it’s all fair game when there is no loyalty except to the money.  Speaking of horrible football losses, the Packers fell to the Browns on Sunday in an all around awful game. Specifically, it was Jordan Love’s interception that cost Green Bay the game in the fourth quarter. At least here the blame can only lay with two people. Jordan Love should have seen the defender coming and adjusted as needed. The play looked a lot more like Brett Favre than Aaron Rodgers. But the playcall was also bad, a fact that Matt LaFleur owned up to. At the end of the day, they are both at fault and that play cost them the game. It doesn’t help when the offensive line completely falls apart, with Zach Thom and Aaron Banks leaving the game once again due to injury. The Browns defense did their job against the Packers, making sure that Love was never comfortable, and Myles Garrett showed why he’s a great player. But don’t get too caught up on the loss, Oates says, the Packers have a history of overlooking an opponent. Maybe now certain players will stop running their mouths about how the Green and Gold are unstoppable…  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, there’s one big question on the minds of Madison sports fans these days: can the Badgers Football team stay relevant? After their loss to Alabama this weekend, Oates thinks they look no better off than they were last year. Sure, they’ve made some changes and added some veteran players, but that didn’t pay off on the field. We weren’t expecting them to beat Alabama, but their blowout loss was tough. Sure, they are down their starting quarterback, but that doesn’t excuse everything. Oates says it all comes down to recruiting. Wisconsin high schools are great at making really good offensive linemen, and the Badgers pursued none of them this year. Instead, the state’s top prospects went to Notre Dame and Minnesota. If they want to run the ball, which we assume they do, they need a good offensive line. To not recruit Wisconsin linemen means their entire offense is going to suffer. This weekend the Badgers will take on Maryland in their first Big 10 matchup of the year. Maryland might hold a 3-0 record, but the Badgers are still favored. It might be the last time in a long while they enter a game favored, maybe even the last time this season depending on how Minnesota and Washington shape up. If they beat Maryland on Saturday, then we can breathe a sigh of relief and start to really look at the rest of the conference matchups. If they lose, then everyone has to be on notice. Because after Saturday, the Badgers will be facing a murderers row of tough teams for weeks. They need to start developing a winning attitude, and to do that you need to win some conference games.   One thing on the Badgers side is that nobody seems to have turf toe, which can’t be said about the NFL. Quarterbacks have been going down across the league, including Joe Burrow who will be out for months at least with turf toe. Jayden Daniels, Justin Fields, and JJ McCarthy are also out with injury. The Packers understand just how hard it is to play competitively when you lose your starting quarterback. At least the Bengals have moves to make, signing former Packer Sean Clifford onto their squad. Speaking of, the Packers will take on the Browns on Sunday after another dominant victory last week. Still, Green Bay shouldn’t take them too lightly. They have some good players in Cleveland, they just make a lot of bad quarterback decisions. Add on the mounting injuries the Packers are already facing, and they can’t assume an easy victory on Sunday.  The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.