The Wisconsin Badgers are expected to have a much different offensive line than the one they trotted out at the end of the season last year. Transfers P.J. Wilkins and Austin Kawecki are projected to be starters at left tackle and center, but Wisconsin is also getting Kevin Heywood back from a torn ACL to now start at right tackle.
There have been some bumps and bruises, however, as Heywood suffered a lower-body injury during fall camp and has not participated over the last few practices, although he’s been considered day-to-day by staffers.
“No, I think we’re trying to be smart,” Fickell said about managing Heywood’s injury this past week. “I think that the idea here of this real grind was through the first 10 days. And not that, you know, the next 10 aren’t really a grind too, but the first 10 days were going to be a grind. And I wasn’t in a hurry to say, ‘look, we need to get him back out there in this grind of things.’
“So hopefully this next week he’ll be able to do a little bit more. But, you know, we’ll have to play that by ear.”
Heywood’s young career has unfortunately been shadowed by a major injury, as he missed the entire 2025 season due to a torn ACL. While this injury clearly doesn’t seem to be of the same level of severity, there isn’t full clarity on his status for Week 1 yet, as he continues to be sidelined in practice.
Wisconsin is still a few weeks out from that September 6th opener, but in Heywood’s place, they’ve rolled out Florida State transfer Lucas Simmons-Johansson, who had drawn some praise from offensive line coach Eric Mateos and had even seen some first-team reps at left tackle before shifting over to the right side after the injury.
The injury does provide an opportunity for depth pieces to get more run, but with the offense primarily giving most of the reps to the starters and top backups, this is valuable practice time that Heywood is missing ahead of the season.