MIKE LUCAS Senior Writer

BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer

MADISON, Wis. — On Wisconsin's first defensive snap, inside linebacker Chris Orr moved to plug the hole on LSU's bruising tailback Leonard Fournette, the 2016 preseason Heisman Trophy frontrunner. Orr took on the iso blocker, J.D. Moore, a 6-foot-4, 241-pound fullback. The collision buckled Orr's right knee.

Standing on the Lambeau Field sideline, Ryan Connelly, who was Orr's backup, quickly processed what had just happened on the field. He would later say that he didn't really have time to get nervous, which in retrospect was a good thing, a blessing in disguise.

When Connelly stepped into the Badger huddle, he was greeted by one of the emotional leaders on defense, Jack Cichy, who immediately assured him, "We got this." Cichy was Orr's partner at inside linebacker. "I just told Ryan, 'Trust yourself and let's go have some fun.' I was confident in him."

On the play following Orr's injury — a season-ending ACL tear — Fournette drew a crowd on a toss sweep. Cichy took out the lead blocker, Moore. Outside linebackers T.J. Watt and Vince Biegel rallied to the ball. Connelly knocked Fournette out of bounds after a 4-yard run.

"No matter what game you go into," Cichy said, "as soon as you can get that first tackle under your belt, you can kind of relax. I'm sure there were different thoughts and emotions running through Ryan's head but, once he got that tackle, it all calmed down and he was just able to play football."

On this day — September 3, 2016 — this was a football snapshot worth framing: Cichy, Connelly, Biegel and Watt swarming and pinning Fournette to the boundary. Together, they combined for 26 tackles in Wisconsin's 16-14 win. Today, these four linebackers are in the National Football League.

After Connelly, who is coming off ACL surgery, was released by the New York Giants, he was claimed last week by his home state Minnesota Vikings. Biegel, who tore his Achilles in mid-August, is on injured reserve with the Miami Dolphins. Watt is a first-team All-Pro with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Meanwhile, Cichy has overcome a string of season-ending injuries to make the cut with Tampa Bay. His setbacks have included a torn pectoral (2016) and torn ACL to his right knee (2017) at Wisconsin and a torn ACL to his left knee (2018) and dislocated elbow (2019) with the Bucs.

"I've been 100 percent since March and I'm feeling great," Cichy said.

During the COVID-19 quarantine period, Cichy trained with former UW teammate Dare Ogunbowale, who has signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars after getting cut by Tampa Bay following the Bucs' signing of, interestingly enough, Fournette. Another Badger teammate, safety D'Cota Dixon, has been placed on the Buccaneers practice squad.

Dixon had the game-sealing interception against LSU.

Since the start of the 2020 training camp, Cichy has spoken a half-dozen times with Leon Jacobs, who's in Jacksonville. Whether reaching out to Jacobs, Connelly, Watt, Biegel, Orr, T.J. Edwards, Joe Schobert or Zack Baun, he noted the unspoken bond, an esprit de corps emanating from the UW linebacker alumni corps.

"All those guys, we took it upon ourselves that we can be as good as we want, and we all dedicate ourselves to being that," Cichy said. "With the help of a great strength staff and great coaching staff at Wisconsin, we were all able to develop our game to put ourselves in position to have success at the next level."

Former UW defensive coordinator Dave Aranda changed the linebacker culture by converting the defense from a 4-3 to a 3-4 base. Starting in 2013 as a member of Gary Andersen's staff and continuing through Paul Chryst's first season in 2015, he impacted the unit's personnel and personality.

In January of 2016, LSU hired Aranda to call defensive signals.

"After the game (at Lambeau), I went up and talked to Coach Aranda because I hadn't seen him in awhile," Cichy said. "He had coached me for three years, so we were still very close. The first thing that he said to me was, 'Nice job on that A gap.' I knew what he was talking about."

Late in the second quarter, Fournette was stopped for no gain by Connelly and Biegel on a third-and-1 from the LSU 45. The Tigers tried to keep the drive alive on fourth down, but it was Cichy and Watt who stopped Fournette in his tracks. "I remember I shot the backside gap," Cichy said.

In the third quarter, Cichy came hard on a pass rush and knocked the ball free from quarterback Brandon Harris, whose fumble was recovered by Fournette for a loss of five. "It was an A gap blitz," Cichy recalled fondly. "I kind of picked up where I left off the previous season in the Holiday Bowl."

Ah, yes, the birth of Three-Sack Jack.

In the 2015 Holiday Bowl, the Badgers were protecting a 20-14 lead in the final minutes of the third quarter when USC took over on the 50. On first down, Cichy sacked quarterback Cody Kessler for a loss of nine. On second and third downs, he sacked Kessler for back-to-back losses of seven yards each.

Throw in a false start penalty, and the Trojans punted on fourth-and-38 from their own 22.

Connelly couldn't match Cichy's volume. But he had a game-changing play against LSU.

Trailing 14-13, the Badgers were in desperate need of a defensive stop in the fourth quarter. On third-and 8 from the Tigers 33, Harris completed a screen pass to Fournette, who had one of the best centers in the SEC, Ethan Pocic, in the flat leading interference for him in the open field.

Connelly diagnosed the play immediately.

"Coach Wilcox always stresses a 'bait and slip' move that we've actually practiced," Connelly said then of first-year UW defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox who had replaced Aranda. "It was risky because if I don't get it, then it was going to be a pretty large gain. But I took my chance.

"If you take it, you've got to make it."

Pocic was duped by Connelly's tackling angle and missed his block.

That left Connelly one-on-one with Fournette.

"You've got to hold on for dear life," he said, "and hope he goes to the ground."

Connelly held Fournette to a modest pickup of 3 yards and LSU had to punt.

"There are different words for it, some call it a 'Rope-a-Dope' technique — stick and work over the top of the blocker — it's just one of those things that you have to feel it as you're going," Cichy said of Connelly's strategy. "Ryan had a couple of big plays but that one stood out in my mind."
 

As it was, Connelly was the backup to the backup, Orr. The Badgers went into the LSU opener without Edwards, who was injured during camp. The year before, Edwards had led the defense in tackles as a redshirt freshman. His loss factored into the Tigers being a double-digit favorite.

"We needed to be that much more sure of our responsibilities," Cichy said. "When T.J. went down and we were working without him during the first part of training camp, we kind of knew that's how it was going to be against LSU.

"Regardless of who was up (Orr or Connelly), we knew that we had to come ready and make sure everyone did their 1/11th, which kind of set the tone for the whole year."

During the game itself, the offense set the tone by hogging the rock.

The Badgers dominated time of possession: 36:57 to 23:03 (13:07 to 1:53 in the first quarter).

"We're saying, 'All right, our offense is doing its job, we have to get some three-and-outs and get some turnovers and just get the ball back to them and we should be on schedule,'" Cichy said.

That was true even after the Badgers fell behind in the second half.

"Going into the fourth quarter," Cichy said, "the mindset was that we just had to keep playing like we had been playing. And as long as we were disciplined those big plays and those scoring plays weren't going to happen for them (the Tigers)."

In the end, this was an unranked, unsung Badger team that was fueled by the doubters.

"We just embraced the challenge," said Cichy. "That's the one thing Coach Chryst and all the coaching staff always did. He really taught us as players to embrace adversity and the challenge.

"We had been hearing since spring ball, or whenever the schedule came out, how tough it was going to be. When you're a football player and people outside the building are talking like that, it really frustrates you and ticks you off.

"As a team, we took a lot of ownership. We didn't care what our schedule was. We were going to play every opponent as well as we could. After we got that win (against LSU) — they were the fifth-ranked team and we knocked them off — we had our confidence: 'Alright, we can do this against anyone.' It doesn't matter who they put on the schedule. We're going to fight and give them a game and ideally, we're going to come out with a win.

"It's nice to look back on that season. We were fighters, we were dogs.

"That was kind of the story of the year."