Was Luke Fickell's success at Cincinnati due to an elite group of assistants?

After the 2022 regular season ended, the Bearcats went 9-3 and got a bowl matchup against Louisville in the Wasabi Fenway Bowl.

Around 2 weeks before the bowl game, Luke Fickell announced he would be leaving the Bearcats to take the head coaching job at Wisconsin. The next season, the Bearcats would be taking the jump to the Big 12. In February of 2022, Fickell had signed an extension to stay with the Bearcats until 2028, then left after 1 season under the new contract.

With Fickell being at Wisconsin for two full seasons now, going into his third, many people are starting to speculate how he was that successful as a head coach at Cincinnati.

Marcus Freeman, the defensive coordinator for the Bearcats from 2017-2020, left the Bearcats 22 months earlier than Fickell, for Notre Dame, and was promoted to head coach around a year later when Brian Kelly left for LSU.

A lot of the assistant coaches from the Cincinnati Bearcat teams, who went 9-1 and 13-1, in 2020 and 2021, making NY6 bowl games both years, are currently coaching under Freeman at Notre Dame.

With Notre Dame having a lot of success under Freeman and Fickell struggling at Wisconsin, fans are starting to think that all of Fickell's success came from the coaching staff around him at Cincinnati.

Notre Dame's QB coach, Gino Guidugli, was formerly the Bearcats' offensive coordinator. Notre Dame's current offensive coordinator and tight ends coach, Mike Denbrock, served as the Cincinnati OC from 2017-2021 before going to LSU for one season, then to Notre Dame.

Notre Dame also has former Bearcats wide receiver coach Mike Brown, who coaches the receivers for the Irish as well. They also have former Bearcats coach Mike Mickens, who coaches the defensive backs for the Irish. Their current special teams coordinator, Brian Mason, formerly had the same position with Bearcats.

Al Washington, the defensive line coach for the Irish coached under Fickell in 2017, while Max Bullough, a graduate assistant coach for Fickell in 2019 is currently the linebackers for Notre Dame.

There are currently 8 coaches a part of Notre Dame's current coaching staff that were once coaching under Luke Fickell in his six-year tenure at Cincinnati from 2017-2022, primarily all from the 2020-2021 seasons, where the Bearcats went to back-to-back NY6 bowl games.

Fickell has a record of 13-13 as the Wisconsin head coach, going 5-7 last season, missing a bowl game, and having the same record as the Bearcats. Freeman, in his three seasons as head coach at Notre Dame, has a record of 33-10, making the college football championship last season.

Why is it that Freeman has had so much more success than Fickell since leaving Cincinnati? it is obvious that Notre Dame has better resources than Wisconsin, but not by far. Wisconsin is a hotter destination for recruits and transfers than Cincinnati, yet he recruiting the same kind of talent he was at Cincinnati and not having good results.

Freeman's assistant coaching staff looks to be the difference. Fickell is under contract with Wisconsin until 2032, so he has plenty of time to turn it around, but if they miss a bowl game for the second straight season with no real plan of looking any better, how soon could we see Fickell out of Madison?