MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin football’s offseason workouts are in full swing, while the men’s basketball team has reached the halfway mark of the Big Ten season with a massive home game against Purdue up next. You had questions for the Badgers mailbag. Here are the answers:

Note: Submitted questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What should fans take away from the coaching staff turnover this offseason? The O-line play was not up to par, so we get that one. However, Mike Brown and Colin Hitschler are more concerning due to their recruiting prowess. (Yes, I get they’re going to blue-blood programs.) Are these assistants just rock stars? It seems like a lot of turnover after just one season. — David N.

I understand why fans are anxious about the offseason staff turnover because of the importance of continuity and the perception that Luke Fickell or Wisconsin can’t retain its best coaches. But having in-demand assistants shows that Fickell is hiring quality coaches, and every situation is different. While it would be nice for the program to have all of its assistant coaches stick around to build something — and certainly for longer than one season — that isn’t always realistic.

Of the three assistant coaching moves, reassigning offensive line coach Jack Bicknell Jr. is the one that stands out most because it means Bicknell didn’t perform at the level necessary. Fickell can’t afford to get hires wrong if he wants to elevate Wisconsin, but his willingness to make a change also shows he isn’t stubborn enough to continue with something that isn’t working.

Wide receivers coach Mike Brown left for Notre Dame, even though he made $550,000 at Wisconsin, which is believed to be at least $200,000 more than Notre Dame’s last receivers coach, Chansi Stuckey, made in South Bend. While Brown’s salary situation at Notre Dame, a private school, is unknown, his relationship with head coach Marcus Freeman was very important in his decision-making process. Brown worked with Freeman at Cincinnati and said Freeman was the one person “in the entire country that could have picked up the phone and called me and I would have been the least bit interested in.”

Safeties coach Colin Hitschler leaving for Alabama hurts Wisconsin because of his recruiting prowess and ability to keep pipelines running to Madison from the East Coast. He was the primary recruiter for six of Wisconsin’s 22 signees in the 2024 recruiting class. But it’s hard to fault someone for going to a place like Alabama, which qualified for the College Football Playoff in eight of the last 10 years. Hitschler has a connection to Alabama’s new coaching staff, having worked with new defensive coordinator Kane Wommack at South Alabama for two years, first as the director of football operations (2016) and then as safeties coach (2017). Hitschler is the co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach at Alabama now.

These aren’t the first Wisconsin assistant coaches to leave for other jobs, and they won’t be the last. It’s not ideal for the players, who will have their fourth offensive line coach in four seasons and their third wide receivers and safeties coaches in as many years. But Fickell has made what appear to be strong hires to replace all three assistants: AJ Blazek (offensive line), Kenny Guiton (wide receivers) and Alex Grinch (safeties).

Grinch’s tenure as defensive coordinator at USC clearly didn’t end well, but it’s a coup for Wisconsin to land a coach with his knowledge and past successes (including being a four-time Broyles Award nominee) as a position coach. Guiton is considered an excellent recruiter and was named to 247Sports’ “30 Under 30” as one of the nation’s top young assistant coaches in 2020 while at Colorado State.

Here’s an anecdote that highlights what Wisconsin is getting in Blazek from a conversation I had with Erik Dougherty, the stepfather of four-star Badgers offensive tackle signee Kevin Heywood. Dougherty and Heywood visited Vanderbilt during Heywood’s recruitment when Blazek was the offensive line coach there.

“We all left there, and the family spoke about it,” Dougherty said. “If this guy was in a different situation, this might be the guy that we would gravitate towards just because of his high energy, his family disposition, everything about the guy and his coaching methods and the way he broke down Kevin’s film, we thought that was a great positive.

“Kevin is a big dude and a strong dude and he got away with a lot of stuff in high school. But he also said, ‘In this situation, even though you won this battle, these are the technical things that you need to do to correct that moving forward to the next level.’ He ended it with all positives. It’s just his total high energy on everything. And he demands the best out of everybody. He’s heavily involved and even just starting at Wisconsin, he’s digging right in.”

Alex Grinch will return to the Big Ten after being a co-DC/safeties coach at Ohio State in 2018. (Kirby Lee / USA Today)

Is the 2025 schedule the hardest the Badgers have had to play? Are there other years that were comparable? I doubt there is one that is harder. — Jordan H.

I think it’s safe to say that Wisconsin’s schedules in the 2024 and 2025 seasons will be among the most challenging the Badgers have had. It’s possible 2025 ends up being the toughest to date, but there is some competition for that distinction.

First, let’s look at 2024: My colleague at The Athletic, Stewart Mandel, just released his latest early Top 25 for next season. Four Wisconsin opponents made the list: Alabama (No. 8), Penn State (No. 16), Iowa (No. 22) and Oregon (No. 4), with USC just missing the cut. Wisconsin avoids playing No. 2 Ohio State and No. 6 Michigan during the regular season.

In 2025, Wisconsin has to play at Alabama, at Michigan and at Oregon, with home games against Iowa, Ohio State and Washington. While it’s impossible — particularly in the transfer portal era — to predict where those teams will be ranked in two seasons, you can bet most of them will be pretty darn good. If all six of those teams are ranked, or one of the other teams Wisconsin plays that season cracks the Top 25 when the programs play, it will represent rarified territory in terms of schedule difficulty.

Wisconsin has played five ranked opponents during the regular season — excluding a conference championship game and bowl game appearance — on nine occasions: in 1955 (2-3), 1956 (0-3-2), 1958 (3-1-1), 1979 (1-4), 1990 (0-5), 1999 (4-1), 2003 (2-3), 2016 (3-2) and 2021 (2-3). Never before has Wisconsin played six regular season games against opponents ranked in the AP Top 25.

The most ranked teams total that Wisconsin played in one season occurred under Paul Chryst in 2016, when Wisconsin played five ranked opponents during the regular season and then No. 8 Penn State in the Big Ten championship and No. 12 Western Michigan in the Cotton Bowl. Chryst’s 2019 team played six ranked teams, including No. 2 Ohio State in the league title game and No. 7 Oregon in the Rose Bowl. Barry Alvarez’s 1999 team also played six ranked teams, which included a victory against No. 22 Stanford in the Rose Bowl.

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Which player from 2019 or earlier would make the biggest difference for the current team? — Will H.

Well, this is a fun hypothetical question. The answer that immediately came to my mind was quarterback Russell Wilson because no player at that position has been as good in the history of the program. While it was thought that Tanner Mordecai might be able to put up similar numbers last season based on what he accomplished at SMU and how his talent could translate in Phil Longo’s offense, he didn’t come anywhere close. It helped that Wilson played with eight other starters on that 2011 team who became NFL Draft picks. But Wilson also could make everyone around him better, make all the right throws on the field and create plays with his legs.

Running backs Melvin Gordon and Jonathan Taylor come to mind as well. I know Ron Dayne won the Heisman Trophy and Montee Ball was a Doak Walker Award winner just like Gordon and Taylor. But Gordon put together the single greatest season I’ve ever seen in 2014 when he ran for 2,587 yards on a team with a mediocre passing game (15 touchdowns, 16 interceptions). And Taylor was the first player in FBS history to rush for more than 6,000 yards in just three seasons. Plus, he developed into a pretty good pass catcher by his junior season. Watching how either of those two operated against lighter boxes and with more space would have been fun.

Who is one player you’re looking out for during spring practice to show that they are ready to take a step up from their performance or role last year? — Thad N.

The obvious answer to me is wide receiver Trech Kekahuna. His true freshman season stalled because he suffered a fifth metatarsal fracture in his right foot where the bone connects the ankle to the little toe during summer workouts. He made his first appearance on the travel squad for Wisconsin’s game at Illinois on Oct. 21, contributed on special teams and then caught four passes for 64 yards against LSU in the ReliaQuest Bowl while playing 22 snaps from the slot. Kekahuna’s game speed and shiftiness is special, and he can add a bunch to complement Will Pauling as a slot receiver.

“My next step is just keep using this and doing my thing and just try to show coach Longo that I can play at this level,” Kekahuna said after the bowl game. “This offseason is going to be a big thing for me to work hard, get bigger, faster and work on my mental, knowing how to cut or react to coverages pre-snap and post-snap.”

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Who are the top three targets in the 2025 cycle for Wisconsin basketball? — Tony T.

The 2025 recruiting class is an interesting one because the state of Wisconsin has so much talent, and the Badgers are heavily involved with those players. Combo guard Davion Hannah from Milwaukee is a four-star prospect who is rated as the No. 1 player from Wisconsin in the 247Sports Composite and the No. 20 player nationally. He is understandably one of Wisconsin’s top targets and is one of five uncommitted players in the state with a Badgers scholarship offer. The others are centers Kai Rogers and Will Garlock and forwards Xzavion Mitchell and LaTrevion Fenderson. Wisconsin’s lone commitment in the class is from in-state shooting guard Zach Kinziger.

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Jim Snider’s unique approach to strength and conditioning has the Badgers in great shape 

Wisconsin’s 2025 recruiting class is going to be extremely important in setting up the future of the program because, as of now, there will be seven seniors on the 2024-25 roster: point guards Chucky Hepburn and Kamari McGee, shooting guards Max Klesmit and Isaac Lindsey, forwards Markus Ilver and Carter Gilmore and center Steven Crowl. Klesmit, Gilmore and Crowl already have announced they will use the extra year of eligibility the NCAA granted players during the pandemic to return for next season. Guard AJ Storr, with another outstanding season, could rise up NBA Draft boards and be a candidate to leave then as well (if he doesn’t pursue that option after this season).

It’s likely that the Badgers will reconfigure the roster through the transfer portal because they’ll be in need of more veteran help. But how Wisconsin recruits at the high school level will go a long way toward determining what the program looks like.

Wisconsin men’s basketball hosts No. 2 Purdue on Sunday. (Kayla Wolf / USA Today)

In the last couple of years, UW basketball has struck out on the big-name in-state recruits. How much has the offensive breakout, including showcasing an athletic wing like Storr, helped appeal to the big names in the next cycle, and how likely are the Badgers to land someone like Hannah, Mitchell or Rogers from in the state? — Jacob B.

Whenever Wisconsin’s basketball program performs well — either as a team or led by a specific individual — questions quickly roll in about how such positive developments will impact recruiting. Two examples come to mind with the 2014-15 national runner-up team and the play of first-team All-American and eventual NBA lottery pick Johnny Davis in 2021-22.

I think what happens over the course of a specific season doesn’t necessarily impact top high school recruits — at least based on what we’ve seen in previous recruiting cycles. But I do think Storr is the perfect example for what Wisconsin can sell to players coming out of the transfer portal who might have a better sense of what they need to succeed after already being in another college program. Coaches shared with Storr how much they needed him to help the team. But they also helped him realize how much he needed them to become the player he wanted to be. He is more disciplined defensively and a more complete player offensively. That has to appeal to a transfer who has been a good player and sees the way his style can fit at Wisconsin.

As for the chances of landing Hannah, Rogers or Mitchell, it’s tough to say at this point. Hannah has 12 offers and Rogers 17. But Wisconsin is going to take its best shot. Greg Gard showed up to watch Rogers’ Wauwatosa West team play Edgerton earlier this week.

(Top photo: Nathan Ray Seebeck / USA Today)