Wisconsin makes a change, firing AJ Blazek and hiring Eric Mateos
Luke Fickell will be on his third offensive line coach since taking over the program after firing AJ Blazek and hiring former Arkansas OL coach, Eric Mateos to replace him.
When you have a season that goes as poorly as it did for the Wisconsin football team, it’s hard to expect there to be no changes on the coaching staff. Luke Fickell made the call to move on from AJ Blazek, the Badgers’ offensive line coach for the past two seasons.
This was a tough season for the Badgers’ offensive line. Starting left tackle Kevin Heywood missed the season after suffering an injury during spring ball, which put the whole unit at a disadvantage heading into the season. They have to go to the portal quickly to find a replacement.
The Badgers ended up grabbing Wisconsin-native Davis Heinzen out of Central Michigan. Heinzen started the season at left tackle but became a liability, forcing Blazek to shuffle the line to make it somewhat effective. They ended up switching Riley Mahlman from right to left tackle, Emerson Mandell to right tackle from the interior, and putting Heinzen at guard to replace Mandell.
The patchwork offensive line was a problem for the Wisconsin offense for the majority of the season, thus the change.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Badger Backer to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.