Locked and Loaded
October 19, 2016 | Football, Mike Lucas
Jack Cichy is leading the Badger defense to be one of country’s best through hard work, big plays, and breaking the mold.
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BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Jack Cichy answered the question by holding up his right hand.
"I was that close," he said.
Less than an inch separated his right index finger and thumb.
"That close," he repeated.
Cichy was that close to accepting an offer to play football at Holy Cross.
"If I didn't get that call from Wisconsin the day after I got back (from his recruiting visit)," he said, "I would probably be in Worcester, Massachusetts right now."
So instead of getting ready for a Big Ten trophy game against Iowa at Kinnick Stadium, he would be preparing to face Lehigh in a Patriot League matchup at Fitton Football Stadium, a 23,500-seat facility on the Holy Cross campus in Worcester, less than an hour from Boston.
"Pretty different ends of the spectrum," he acknowledged.
But it was that close. One of his Hill Murray High School (Maplewood, Minnesota) coaches knew someone on the Holy Cross staff. That's how it got started. Before his senior year, Cichy attended a Boston College summer camp and contacted Holy Cross while looking into some Ivy League schools.
He was not picky.
"I wanted anyone," Cichy said, "who wanted me."
Holy Cross stayed in touch.
"It was kind of between me and another guy — kind of who chose first," he recalled of his recruitment by the Crusaders, a Football Championship Subdivision program. "The fact that I could go play football, they wanted me, I really enjoyed the school and I have family in Boston, it felt like a good fit when I went out there."
Asked if he could have been happy, if he had accepted the Holy Cross offer, he said, "Maybe."
In the back of his mind, he wanted only one thing.
"I wanted to be the best football player I could be," Cichy said.
When the Badgers called with a walk-on invitation, he admitted, "It was really a no-brainer. I was a Wisconsin kid (from Somerset, a village in St. Croix County) and obviously I had seen the walk-on program success here. When I was given the opportunity, I figured, 'Why not?'"
Had he taken any other option at a lower level of competition, he also figured, "I might have been asking, 'What if?' and I never really wanted to ask that. My dad always told me, 'Work your butt off every day and you'll get what you earn.'" Steve Cichy, a former Notre Dame defensive back, knew something about the process.
"My dad told me to never worry about getting a scholarship — earn it and it will be there," he said. "I took that mindset on the scout team. That's how I went about every day: I'm going to try and be the best football player I can be and make my team a better team and we'll see how it all plays out."
It has all fallen nicely into place for Cichy, now a redshirt junior. Last Saturday night, he had a career-high 15 tackles, including 11 solos, three tackles for loss, a sack and a forced fumble in the overtime loss to Ohio State. On Monday, he was named the Big Ten's Defensive Player of the Week.
Cichy earned the recognition — just like he earned his tender — but he chose to share it.
He singled out Wisconsin's defensive line and his fellow linebackers for making it all possible.
"They're a big piece of my success and I owe a lot to them," stressed Cichy, who leads the Badgers in tackles (8.33 per game). "It would have been a lot better feeling if we would have gotten the win. It's good to be recognized. It was nice. But at the end of the day, it doesn't mean a whole lot."
UW coach Paul Chryst didn't field any questions on Cichy during his Monday press conference.
But he was more than happy to talk about him afterwards.
"I love his approach — his energy, his passion," Chryst said. "He loves playing the game, he loves this team. He's fun to see every day. I just like his awareness to everything. He just gets it — the game — you know what I mean? He can see it in a little bigger picture (than others).
"And he's got a confidence about him that he can trust what he sees. He's not second-guessing himself, instead he's playing as fast as he can. You want them to work and prepare during the week and then go out and have fun playing the game and he does that. He likes life. He has got a pulse."
• • • •
Wisconsin's senior cornerback Sojourn Shelton was asked about Cichy on a Monday teleconference with Iowa media members. Someone wanted to know how walk-on players like Cichy, Joe Schobert and J.J. Watt have been able to excel in the Badger program.
"It's no secret to it," Shelton told them. "Those guys are ballers."
He went on to say they all had the perfect temperament and motivation to succeed.
"They're made to do this," Shelton said. "They have fun playing the game."
To illustrate that point about Cichy, he cited an example from Saturday night.
"I can't remember what drive it was (against Ohio State)," Shelton said. "But we had to get a stop or whatever the case might have been. And Cichy was out there smiling. And it wasn't a situation where you would think a person would be smiling.
"But he had a confidence to him that he knew that we were going to get it done (as a unit). So we smiled back and forth. It was like, 'If anything comes my way, boss-up, and make the play.' The confidence that he had just rubbed off on me and I felt it rubbed off on the whole defense."
Shelton and Cichy were in the same recruiting class and ended up playing as true freshmen in 2013. Shelton, the four-star prospect out of Florida, was a 12-game starter. Cichy, the northern Wisconsin walk-on, appeared in four games and lettered on special teams.
Shelton does remember how Cichy made a favorable impression in a limited role.
"He's just someone who makes plays," he thought to himself.
He also learned right away that Cichy was not shy about expressing himself.
"He's outspoken — that's just him — he's not going to hold anything back," Shelton said. "He's different, but when I say different, I don't mean it in a bad way. He's going to say what he's going to say."
Wide receiver Jazz Peavy has seen — or heard — that "wild" side of Cichy.
But something else has stood out about Cichy.
"His preparation is outstanding," Peavy said. "He has been having a great season so far and everything I've seen him do in games, I've seen him doing in practice day-in and day-out."
Anyone who has played with Cichy would probably say the same thing.
"He's always locked into what he's doing," Peavy added.
It didn't take long for quarterback Alex Hornibrook to get that message. As a second semester enrollee, less than a month removed from his senior year of high school, Hornibrook first crossed paths with Cichy during an early morning team workout at Camp Randall Stadium.
"I'm pretty sure he had a Mohawk — or something — with his headband on," Hornibrook said. "And he was the loudest guy in the room. I thought it was funny. I just remember going into the lifts, and he was the guy pumping everybody up and getting the energy going."
Hornibrook got to know Cichy even better on the practice field.
"I'm good friends with Jack and it's fun at practice," he said. "In skelly or 7-on-7 passing drills, he'll be yelling some stuff my way and I'll be yelling stuff back. He's so competitive. If you're looking for that typical, physical linebacker, that's Jack. He's fearless."
One last observation from Hornibrook.
"He's got a couple of screws loose in the head," he said.
He meant it as a compliment. Cichy was flattered.
"I've said it for awhile, if you play defense, you've got to have a couple of screws loose," Cichy conceded. "I'm fine with the description. That fits me perfect. I embrace that personality."
Cichy was listening to music before entering the media room Monday.
"Chris Stapleton," he said, a choice running counter to the image. "I like the easy-going stuff. Even before games, I'll listen to Bruce Springsteen or Elton John. Chill stuff. Nothing that will rock my head. I like to relax. I remember my freshman year; it was a little different."
But the heavy metal, pump-up selections took too much out of him, he confided.
Now, he conserves his energy prior to the game, so he can expend it all on the field.
"He's such a sure tackler, he doesn't miss tackles," Shelton was saying now. "He has a knack for getting to the quarterback, getting pressure on the guy and making him make throws that he doesn't want to make. I'll be covering, and I'll see him back there finding some way to get to the quarterback."
Cichy was visibly frustrated over a play that he didn't make Saturday night. Coming hard off the edge on a blitz, he was in position to sack Ohio State's quarterback J.T. Barrett, who nimbly sidestepped him in the pocket and scrambled for a fourth-quarter touchdown. That hurt. But he has moved on from it.
Just like this team has moved on from back-to-back losses to Michigan and Ohio State.
"We've reaffirmed a lot, as far as what we knew that we were capable of and what we thought we could do," he said, now at the halfway point of the season. "We learned about ourselves through the adversity we faced and we learned that we're pretty resilient. What is done is done."
Cichy was asked if there was any doubt that this defense could play with anybody.
"No doubt," he said without hesitation.
On Monday, Ohio State coach Urban Meyer was of the same persuasion.
"After playing the Wisconsin defense," Meyer said, "that's as good as we've coached against."
At the end of the first quarter, Cichy made a play in front of Meyer on the Ohio State boundary. Cichy dropped running back Curtis Samuel for a two-yard loss.
The open field tackle that Cichy made on Samuel — reading his keys, exploding out of his two-point stance and overpowering the speedy, athletic ball-carrier — was reminiscent of some of the tackles that inside linebacker Chris Borland made during his Wisconsin and abbreviated NFL career.
"He was a great student of the game and that's what kind of rubbed off on me," said Cichy, who was a freshman when Borland was a senior. "We still watch some of his old film from when he played with the 49ers and disrupted plays. When he saw it, he would just shoot and go."
You either have it. Or you don't.
"It's something you can't really teach," Cichy said.
Under first-year defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox, Cichy has flourished.
"We practice technique a lot, how to defeat blocks, how to tackle, certain things like that," Cichy said. "He (Wilcox) gives us the tools. The freedom comes when he kind of lets us loose out there. He tells us, 'You have all these weapons in your arsenal. Use what works for you.'"
Cichy likes to follow three steps.
Bite down on your mouth guard.
Buckle up your chin strap. And go … go make a play.
Against USC in last year's Holiday Bowl, he made three in a row, three consecutive sacks. Three Sack Jack.
It's so simple, so fundamental, so ingrained.
"That's why I love the game," he said.
His grandfather would be so proud. The late Sid Cichy was a legend, a Hall of Fame coach at Fargo (N.D.) Shanley High School, where he had 11 undefeated teams and won 16 state championships. Cichy writes his initials (SC) on his wrist band before every game.
Steve Cichy played for his dad at Shanley and then alongside Joe Montana at Notre Dame. When people compliment his son for being a student of the game, he thinks about Sid's influence on Jack. There's also his wife's competitive influence. Lisa Cichy played basketball at Marquette.
And, then, there's the influence of Jack's sisters. Rochelle and Tessa Cichy, who played basketball for the Badgers, got their degrees from the UW. Today, they're living together in Chicago. Rochelle works for a software company and Tessa for Stryker Medical.
In their Somerset home, the Cichys have a small indoor basketball court that doubles as a floor hockey surface. "That's where me, Rochelle and Tessa would get our competitive juices flowing and let it all loose," said Jack Cichy, whose mindset is no different today than it was back then.
He's still pushing the limits to see how good he can be.
