Badgers News: What’s the plan for the defensive line without James Thompson?

The Wisconsin Badgers received some bad news before the season: Head coach Luke Fickell announced that James Thompson Jr. suffered a likely season-ending injury in practice last week, leading to a deterioration in the team’s defensive strength.

Thompson, a redshirt senior, was expected to return as a starter and be the face of the defensive line this season, but will now be out four to five months after undergoing surgery last week.

He’s out and the Badgers already have questions at that position. What is the team’s plan for the defensive line?

“To be honest, I would say we’re going to have six players on the D-line come fall camp,” Fickell said of the team’s depth at that position. “And I really believed that this group was a lot better than last year and that we could say, ‘Hey, we can have six players.'”

“Two weeks ago we wanted to play with six players. Right now we’re planning to play with five.”

Fickell praised the team’s depth in the defensive line this fall, pointing out that the group has improved both at the top and in depth to be able to play with a larger number of players.

Which six players did he originally plan to use? They would have been James Thompson Jr., Curt Neal, Ben Barten, Elijah Hills, Brandon Lane and Cade McDonald.

With Thompson now out, Neal and Barten have been listed as starters, while McDonald and Hills are the backups on the lineup Wisconsin has lined up for Week 1.

Still, Fickell expects the other five to play key roles not just this week, but throughout the season, and another player could fit well into the mix.

“Brandon Lane is definitely going to be a guy to watch and we’ll see how much time we’ll have,” Fickell said. “And then Dillan Johnson is certainly a true freshman who’s going to play and we’ll see how much time we’ll have.”

“The idea of ​​us, you know, is to have those guys play 40 snaps a game, maybe the top three guys. There’s a lot of other snaps out there that we need from (Elijah) Hills and Brandon Lane and Dillan Johnson, and we’re only going to be as good as we can be deep enough at that position.”

While these six are clear candidates for playing time, Fickell did not rule out that some of the other players will also play in depth, depending on external factors such as injuries or improvements in training.

“And there are a couple of other guys that you would say, ‘Hey, we’ll see in the first couple of weeks if we need them, then they’ll be there,'” Fickell said. “Mel (Jamel Howard) and maybe even Nolan Vils are guys that if the situation calls for it, that is, if we get into a goal-line situation, we’re going to need a couple of other big bodies.”

The Badgers’ defensive line will definitely be under closer scrutiny after losing James Thompson Jr., but the team has been trying to add depth this offseason to improve on last year’s group.

Week 1 will be the first test of that, as Wisconsin faces Western Michigan in its season opener Friday at Camp Randall Stadium, kicking off at 8 p.m. CT.