Wisconsin won’t be searching for a new football coach this year, as the athletic director confirmed Luke Fickell will return to lead the Badgers in 2026.

Athletic director Chris McIntosh confirmed Fickell’s status to ESPN on Thursday, Nov. 6 and informed the team of the decision.

The decision comes weeks after McIntosh voiced his support for Fickell to finish what has been a disastrous year for the Badgers. Wisconsin is currently 2-6 with six consecutive losses, and one of four Big Ten teams without a conference victory. It has come while playing one of the hardest schedules in the country that includes five teams currently ranked in US LBM coaches poll, with three in the top 10.

With Washington and Indiana still left on the schedule, It’s on pace to be the worst season for Wisconsin since 1990, Barry Alvarez’s first season in Madison. Fans have voiced displeasure with Fickell and attendance has been down at Camp Randall Stadium, which is on pace to be its lowest since 1992.

‘This season has caused us all to have to look from within,’ McIntosh said. ‘Luke has had to do that. I’ve had to do that. He has a willingness to be better. So do I, and so does Wisconsin from an institutional perspective.’

The athletic director added the university is increasing its investment into the program and roster that will hopefully put the team back on track to achieve the success it sustained in the 2010s.

‘Chancellor (Jennifer) Mnookin and I are aligned on significantly elevating investment in our program to compete at highest level,’ McIntosh said. ‘We are willing to make an investment in infrastructure and staff. As important, is our ability to retain and recruit players in a revenue share and NIL era.’

Fickell is in his third season with Wisconsin after a successful tenure at Cincinnati, where he led the Bearcats to be the first Group of Five team the reach the four-team College Football Playoff in 2021.

Since he was hired in 2022, Fickell is 15-19 with an 8-15 mark in the Big Ten play. After going 7-6 in his first season with an appearance at ReliaQuest Bowl, Wisconsin finished 5-7 in 2024, ending its streak of 22 consecutive seasons with a bowl appearance. 

Fickell’s contract runs through the 2031 season. By retaining him for the 2026 season, Wisconsin avoids having to pay buyout of $27.1 million if he was fired before Dec. 1. In 2026, Wisconsin will open the season with a game against Notre Dame at Lambeau Field then home contests against Western Illinois and Pittsburgh.

Minnesota Wild forward Tyler Pitlick was kicked out of Thursday’s game after his hit left another Carolina Hurricanes defenseman with an injury.

Pitlick received a match penalty for an illegal check to the head in the first period after he caught Jalen Chatfield with a hit that sent the defenseman’s head snapping back.

Chatfield was down on the ice for a while before being assisted to the dressing room, adding to Carolina’s injury woes on the blue line.

Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal jumped in and fought Pitlick. Staal received 17 penalty minutes, including two for instigating and a misconduct, in his milestone game.

Staal was playing in his 910th game with the Hurricanes, breaking brother Eric’s record for most appearances since the team moved to North Carolina.

The Hurricanes announced that Chatfield would not return because of an upper body injury. That’s bad news for the Hurricanes, who have been banged up on the blue line.

They had activated defenseman K’Andre Miller from the injured list before the 4-3 Carolina win. Shayne Gostisbehere remains out with an injury and Jaccob Slavin has been limited to two games.

‘This is just the way this year has gone,’ coach Rod Brind’Amour said. ‘We just can’t get healthy and then keep losing key pieces. That’s rough. I don’t know how long (Chatfield is) going to be out, but it was a tough hit.’

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The Las Vegas Raiders gambled on Geno Smith this offseason.

To this point, it hasn’t paid off in a big way. The quarterback has struggled in his first season with the silver-and-black, leading the team to a 2-6 record. After being beaten up all night long in Denver, Smith exited with a leg injury in the fourth quarter.

Kenny Pickett was called on to replace Smith, who was hurt on a seemingly harmless play.

Here’s the latest on Smith.

Geno Smith injury update

Smith visited the blue medical tent and returned to the game after being evaluated.

The quarterback was injured on a scramble at the beginning of the fourth quarter on ‘Thursday Night Football’ against the Broncos.

He was quick to get up, but slowly went back down the turf. He was hit on the knee following a tackle from Nik Bonitto.

Smith did some light jogging on the sidelines after coming out of the tent. He appeared to be working through whatever the ailment is, in an apparent attempt to get back in the game.

Vegas was only trailing by three in what was a struggle on offense for both sides. Smith was sacked five times in the first half and has taken plenty of hits.

Pickett came in to replace Smith.

Raiders QB depth chart

• Geno Smith
• Kenny Pickett
• Cam Miller (practice squad)

Pickett remains the only healthy quarterback on the roster outside of Smith. Vegas is still waiting for the return of Aidan O’Connell, who remains on injured reserve.

The Los Angeles Lakers managed to rally in the second half to produce a 118-116 victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night.

The Lakers overcame a 12-point deficit against Victor Wembanyama and Co. Luka Doncic flirted with a triple-double, finishing with 35 points, 13 assists and nine rebounds. Marcus Smart contributed with 17 points, five assists and five rebounds.

While the Lakers turned things around in the fourth quarter, Los Angeles nearly gave the game away with some mistakes…

Marcus Smart nearly costs Lakers game

The Lakers nearly gave the game away, allowing the Spurs to stay competitive throughout the final seconds.

Marcus Smart began the tense finish when he turned the ball over on an inbound pass with seconds left in regulation. 

Smart decided to move quickly, trying to pass the ball across the court to take advantage of a mismatch, but did not fully have his foot out of bounds.

‘As a 12-year vet, I can’t make that mistake,’ Smart said after the game.

Jake LaRavia commits costly foul late

Jake LaRavia entered the game with 0.4 seconds left on the clock and made a second mistake for the Lakers that could’ve sent the game to overtime.

LaRavia was called for a shooting foul on Julian Champagnie while the Lakers led 118-116. Luckily for the Lakers, Champagnie missed both free throws. Champagnie has shot 85.2% from the free-throw line in his career.

• Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin scored his 900th career goal on Nov. 5.
• St. Louis Blues goalie Jordan Binnington picked up the milestone puck and tucked it in his pants.
• A linesman spotted the move and made Binnington return the puck.

Washington Capitals players poured onto the ice to mob Alex Ovechkin after he scored his 900th career goal during the second period on Wednesday, Nov. 5.

They weren’t paying attention to where the milestone puck was.

But St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington knew its location. The feisty netminder, who had given up the goal on an Ovechkin backhander, picked up the puck and tucked it inside his pants.

But he didn’t get away with it.

Linesman Michel Cormier had spotted the move. He talked to the goalie in his crease and Binnington reached into his pants and gave the puck to the on-ice official.

Ovechkin laughed when asked by reporters after the game about the incident.

‘Yeah, I just saw it,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to comment.’

Ovechkin’s goal had given the Capitals a 2-0 lead at 2:39 of the second period.

Anthony Beauvillier and John Carlson scored within the next seven minutes, and Binnington was pulled in favor of Joel Hofer.

Binnington, the 4 Nations Face-Off-winning goalie, fell to 3-5-2 with a 3.34 goals-against average and .859 save percentage.

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• Dallas’ owner admitted before Monday’s loss to Arizona how important being ‘relevant’ was to him.
• Tuesday, the Cowboys executed two trades, including a blockbuster with the Jets for DL Quinnen Williams.
• Yet still, the Cowboys remain among the minority of NFL teams that are actually below .500.

Being ‘relevant’ in the parity-laden NFL isn’t a very high bar. Yet if you have to take a crowbar to your organization to achieve that standard, then it will likely be damn near impossible to exceed much more than, well, (temporary?) relevance.

There’s no doubt Jerry Jones would very much like to win his first Super Bowl in 30 years. He’d doubtless be thrilled to play in the NFC championship game for the first time in … 30 years.

Yet winning a fourth ring isn’t necessarily an all-consuming objective for the longtime owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who tipped his hand yet again prior to his team’s Monday night loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

‘The Dallas Cowboys probably have the kind of interest that we have in no small part because we stay out front, and we stay controversial,’ Jones said on Stephen A. Smith’s SiriusXM show.

‘When it gets slow, I stir that (expletive) up. Fact. I just want to be relevant. I just want you to be looking at us.’

And here we are. Staring at the pseudo-relevance.

Eighteen of the NFL’s 32 teams currently stand at .500 or better. Jones’ isn’t one of them. The Cowboys are 3-5-1, good for second place in the sorry NFC East – barely – and 11th place overall in the conference. Dallas is two games behind the Detroit Lions, who currently hold the NFC’s final wild-card spot.

Yet Tuesday, Jones made good on his Monday teases, consummating trades he signaled were coming prior to the Cowboys’ public face plant on ‘Monday Night Football.’ Not 24 hours later, they’d traded for a linebacker (Logan Wilson) who’d just been benched by the Cincinnati Bengals, owners of what is the NFL’s worst defense by orders of magnitude, before obtaining the New York Jets’ Quinnen Williams, a three-time Pro Bowler who’s one of the league’s better defenders … and also one who cost Dallas dearly.

Relevant, huh?

On the one hand, you have to hand it to Jones. Though his team is entering its bye, it’s now positioned to largely dominate the NFL news cycle following the Williams deal – likely for the rest of this week, and maybe for the rest of 2025. Though the Cowboys will be two games under .500 when they return to the field, you won’t be able to avoid them. Dallas is set to embark on a five-week stretch after its week off that will include three prime-time games, a nationally televised matchup with the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles in the 4:25 p.m. ET window on Nov. 23 and a Thanksgiving meeting with … the Kansas City Chiefs, a living, breathing dynasty like the one Jones had decades ago.

But on the other hand?

According to the NFL’s analytics, the Cowboys have a 5% chance of making the playoffs. Wilson – in theory – and Williams are bound to improve a defense that is the league’s worst this side of Cincinnati. But is that really saying much? Are they going to cover Marvin Harrison Jr.? Or A.J. Brown? Are they going to prevent teammate George Pickens from indulging some of his worst on-field habits, as he did Monday night? Is Williams, who turns 28 next month, really going to be a cornerstone here – especially when he’s due $46 million in base salary over the 2026 and ’27 seasons and given his arrival dilutes the organization’s ability to reload the roster in the aftermath of the late-summer trade of pass rusher extraordinaire Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers? For those keeping score, Parsons returned two first-round picks, while Williams cost a Round 1 and Round 2 selection – so that’s an appreciably degraded defense now devoid of most of the Parsons profits that might have eventually replenished it.

And taking on Williams’ salary and pooling it with fat paychecks already taken home by Prescott and wideout CeeDee Lamb, guard Tyler Smith and others further restricts Jones’ ability to add topflight veterans in the future.

Maybe Jones thinks the Cowboys should or must win now, especially considering moves of this magnitude and the forfeiture of so much of the Parsons bounty. Especially given quarterback Dak Prescott is 32. Especially at a time when the NFC – and league at large – doesn’t seem to have an apparent juggernaut.

But the pre-Williams Cowboys couldn’t deal with a Cardinals team, now 3-5 itself, triggered by journeyman backup quarterback Jacoby Brissett and a band of fill-in running backs. They can’t stack up with the Eagles. Or the Rams. Or the Seahawks. Or the Buccaneers. Or the Lions. Or probably Parsons’ Packers even though they could only manage a tie with the Cowboys during his return to Dallas earlier this season.

‘They’re better because they can’t be worse, just having Quinnen Williams on the team,’ said former New York Giants vice president of player personnel Marc Ross, now an NFL Network analyst.

‘I thought the Micah Parsons trade was bad, and you’re making another trade here that is just trying to make up for that. … I don’t think that’s a win for the Cowboys.

‘They can’t rush the passer, and they can’t cover anybody – and I don’t think they can do that even now. … They’re not good enough to compete right now.’

But after Jones’ latest shell game, at least they’re relevant. Maybe even until Christmas.