The Badgers have made a significant staff move with two weeks left in the season.
In a significant move, the Wisconsin Badgers have fired offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Phil Longo, the team announced on Sunday.
“This morning, I informed Phil Longo that he will no longer serve as our offensive coordinator,” head coach Luke Fickell shared in an official statement. “After continuing to evaluate the program, I decided we are not where we need to be and believe this decision is in the best interest of the team. I appreciate Phil’s commitment to helping us build our program over the past two seasons and wish him well moving forward. This team still has a lot in front of us and I am committed to doing everything we can to close out this season with success.”
The move ends the Air Raid experiment after just 23 games for Longo at Wisconsin, where the Badgers went 12-11, including 5-5 this year.
The Badgers are most recently coming off a 16-13 loss to the No. 1 Oregon Ducks, where they struggled to generate any traction in the passing game, despite getting ample opportunities to do so and upset the top team in the nation.
Prior to his stint in Madison, Longo had spent four years as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the North Carolina Tar Heels.
Longo’s arrival at Wisconsin represented a significant change for the program, as Wisconsin had looked to change its offensive approach by adding more quarterback talent into the program.
That led to three quarterback transfers a season ago, as well as another this offseason with Tyler Van Dyke, but the Badgers never had a consistent passing attack, leading to two seasons filled with ups and downs.
Now, the Longo experiment is officially over, as the Badgers will go in another direction, needing to win one of their next two games to earn bowl eligibility this season.