For a generation, the culture of Wisconsin football was clear as day, even from the outside looking in.
Toughness, physicality, in your face, down your throat.
During a 10-game losing streak to the Badgers that spanned 2005 to 2017, Wisconsin beat Indiana by an average score of 51 to 14 (you had it coming Bret Bielema).
But the times, they are changing in the Big Ten.
Indiana has defeated Wisconsin two games in a row, and that has come before a coaching change at Indiana that has the Hoosiers off to a 15-2 start in the Curt Cignetti era.
And now it’s the Wisconsin side that looks at IU with admiration.
When he entered the transfer portal following the 2024 season, tight end Riley Nowakowski knew he wanted to stay in the Big Ten.
And when he took his visit to Bloomington, he saw what we all perceived from afar in Madison over the last few decades.
“Just the culture, the culture of the guys,” Nowakowski said on the Under the Hood podcast was the appeal of Indiana. “The locker room. It seemed like everybody was in it, and in it for the right reasons. Everyone was committed, showing up every day.
“I took my official visit when they were about to play Notre Dame and everybody was so locked in. I get it’s the playoffs, but it’s December, you’ve already been in season for 4-5 months now. It’s tough to get scouts, twos and ones all locked in for that whole amount of time. When I came here it seemed like everybody was itching, like they were still hungry like it was week one or week two.
“That showed me the mentality of Cig, and then talking to him and how he is, there was just this like sense of urgency, and never being satisfied. That’s something that my parents always brought me up with, like hey ‘I don’t care if we’re up 50 points, 60 points, I don’t care if we’re down 20, it’s the same mentality over and over again. I don’t care if life is coming at you hard, or you’re living the good life, you’ve got to still approach life the same way every day.’ So that was a really big thing that drew me to Cig and this program.”
Nowakowski has stepped in and quickly become one of the more valuable players in the IU program.
Among the players with the highest offensive snap counts, he’s one of the highest-graded players on the team according to PFF, with solid pass blocking and run blocking numbers. And he’s shown his versatility, with touchdowns as both a pass-catcher and a fullback.
With four catches for 72 yards through four games, Nowakowski isn’t going to wow anyone with big numbers.
But like his predecessor in the role Zach Horton, Nowakowski has established himself as a player IU relies on to do a little bit of everything, and do it well.
Now Nowakowski is one of the players in the locker room he admired, locked in, itching to make an impact.
And his head coach has noticed.
“Sort of an unsung hero, high effort, high character, gives you everything he’s got play in and play out, really dependable,” Cignetti said.
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