In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Oates is away on business so Lucas is joined by the voice of the Wisconsin Badgers: Mike Mahke! Mike has been the voice of Camp Randall and the Kohl Center for decades, and continued to do his job even during the Badgers’ dumbfounding defeat by Iowa on Saturday. The game started on a high note, with Monte Ball being honored for his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. Surely at least a few fans were wondering if he still had any years of eligibility left in him… When calling a game like Saturday, Mike says it’s not always as hard as it seems, though it is less fun. He’s there to do a job, he says, and will continue to provide information and optimism in even the toughest times.

After Saturday’s loss to Iowa, many fans are feeling both angry and sad, with some even beginning to tune out. Early in the game on Saturday, Mike says that everyone in those stands wanted to be there and were pulling for a competitive victory. But as the game went on and the opportunities began to slip away, he could feel it. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to tune out, Mike says. Badger fans are fans through thick and thin, and need to stay behind their team. At the very least, they should follow what Luke Fickell has to say: be mad at the coach but not at the players on the field. 

Next weekend, the Badgers take on Ohio State at home. It’ll be a tough fight, Mike thinks, specifically for the Badgers’ defense. They’ll need to do more that they showed against Iowa if they want to have any chance of slowing Ohio State. But if you’re still looking for a reason to go on Saturday, there will be a special celebration for the Badgers’ Rose Bowl winning teams, especially for Ron Dayne and Barry Alvarez. Who knows, there might even be a Ron Dayne call echoing through Camp Randall once again… 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Joe Flacco didn’t seem to get enough of the Green Bay Packers. Earlier this week he was traded from the Browns over to the Bengals, who happen to face the Packers this Sunday. The Browns gain a 5th round draft pick in 2026, and the Bengals get a replacement for the injured Joe Burrow, which seems like a pretty good trade. He seems likely to play against the Packers again this weekend, can he beat the Packers a second time? Maybe, but that all depends on if you thought it was him who beat the Packers the first time a few weeks ago. Flacco was awful when the Browns beat the Packers, and has only a 58% completion rate this season with six interceptions. If the Packers can put pressure on him, he should be dead in the water. At 40 years old, he can’t run even if he still does have a good arm. The Packers should be able to beat the Bengals this weekend, and after that have a good stretch ahead of them: Arizona, then Pittsburg, then Carolina, then the Eagles. It’s not unreasonable to expect them to go four-for-four in that stretch! At the very least, they better rack up at least three wins in that stretch. 

In college football, the Badgers stunk it up once again in their loss against Michigan. They had two good drives all game: their first drive where they got a touchdown and their last drive where they got a field goal. But the sloppy play wasn’t the biggest concern on Saturday, it was Luke Fickell’s “strategy.” Not even the TV experts could understand why he wouldn’t take a timeout at the end of the game. Oates has two theories. One is the answer given by Fickell, that it was a strategy that failed big time. The other theory is what many fans, including Oates, think actually happened: Fickell waved the white flag to prevent Michigan from running up the score. Fans are upset, as they should be, with Joe Klatt loudly calling the “strategy” a bad look to the entire nation. This weekend they play Iowa, in what both should be and needs to be a win.

Finally, as of recording on Tuesday the Brewers have taken the first two games in their NLDS series against the Cubs. The Miz left his sloppy slump to give an electric performance on the mound during a bullpen game that saw him pitching for three innings. In those three innings, he threw 31 pitches at 100 mph or higher, capping out at 104.3! The Brewers used him exactly how they needed to use him, Oates says. He isn’t ready as a playoff starter, but letting him do his thing for a few innings here and there worked to throw the Cubs off their game. But the real dagger on Monday wasn’t the Miz, it was Andrew Vaughn’s three-run homer in the bottom of the first. The Cubs still have a chance to turn things around, so the Brewers can’t slow down, but Monday’s game seemed to put a real stamp on the entire Cubs organization.

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Packers reached a tie against the Cowboys late Sunday evening, which makes us ask the question: why even have ties in the NFL? The league says it’s to promote “the health of the athletes,” but Oates isn’t buying it. After all, if that were true, they wouldn’t be trying to add more games onto each season. The changes to how overtime works are nothing but grandstanding by the NFL, Oates says, and ultimately doesn’t make much sense. Sure, college overtime rules aren’t too much better and nobody wants to see a field goal competition to end a game. What they should do, Lucas thinks, is have a 10 minute quarter and if there is no winner at 10 minutes keep going until it is no longer a tie. Or, better yet, just play one 15 minute quarter!

Tie notwithstanding, Sunday was a horrible night for the Packers across the board. Starting with clock management, there were issues across the entire game. It really makes you wonder if the Packers weren’t so aggressive at the end of the first half and gave up a touchdown what the rest of the game would have looked like. It’s an outstanding problem with Matt LaFleur, says Oates: he’s aggressive when he needs to be passive and passive when he needs to be aggressive. Just look at the field goal that brought the game to a tie. Turning to the defense, the Packers should not have allowed the Cowboys to run up the score the way they did. There was no pass rush outside of Micah Parsons, and the secondary was terrible throughout the entire game outside of Keisean Nixon. Where was the blitzing? Dak Prescott might not be a grade-A quarterback, but he is a veteran who if left alone all day will find somewhere to throw the ball. Finally, the special teams once again proved to be a major problem. The Packers have a bye week this week followed by a game against the Bengals in Green Bay, which better be a glorified bye week again.

Turning quickly to college football, the Badgers will come off their own bye week to take on Michigan this Saturday. They enter the game the underdogs by a good margin, if you believe the point spread, but Oates thinks it might be more complicated than that. Michigan has a young quarterback who might be able to be exploited if Madison’s defence does their job correctly. Either way, you should be able to expect a good effort out of the Badgers this weekend, and hopefully Michigan decides to take them lightly.

Finally, postseason baseball is here with the Brewers sitting with more wins than anyone in baseball. They’ll play  someone this weekend, the question becomes who? Both the Padres and the Cubs are good and basically equal in both hitting and pitching. Either way, it’ll be a tough series against a team that currently has the season on the Brewers. One thing is for sure though. Whoever we face won’t have the top payroll in all of the MLB. That team couldn’t even make the playoffs…

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Badgers lost a must-win game against Maryland on Saturday, causing the fans to act in a way that has some people a bit perturbed. Boos were loud in Camp Randall, and with half the stadium gone in the fourth quarter the “Fire Fickell” chants were also loud. Lucas and Oates agree that the Fire Fickell chants were uncalled for, but they also don’t love how former Athletic Director and Badger Football Coach Barry Alvarez reacted to the calls. On his radio show earlier this week, he said that the fans are spoiled rotten, and it's disrespectful to flip on the team this early in the season. He did walk back his tone a little bit, and Oates doesn’t disagree with the sentiment behind the statements, but he also doesn’t think it’s doing anything to help the program when people are already tuning out.

There was a lot of blame going around, along with votes of confidence for those being blamed, but Lucas returns to an old question: can you boo college athletes? In the past, he says no. Once upon a time college athletes were still student athletes doing their best. But in today’s game, these players are getting paid not insignificant amounts of money. That makes them pros, and open to boos. Who can blame the fans for booing a professional player who they don’t even know? It’s not like the old days where you could watch a player grow over the course of four years; today’s college athletes are staying for a year or maybe two then moving to where the money is. Would Lucas boo? No, but it’s all fair game when there is no loyalty except to the money. 

Speaking of horrible football losses, the Packers fell to the Browns on Sunday in an all around awful game. Specifically, it was Jordan Love’s interception that cost Green Bay the game in the fourth quarter. At least here the blame can only lay with two people. Jordan Love should have seen the defender coming and adjusted as needed. The play looked a lot more like Brett Favre than Aaron Rodgers. But the playcall was also bad, a fact that Matt LaFleur owned up to. At the end of the day, they are both at fault and that play cost them the game. It doesn’t help when the offensive line completely falls apart, with Zach Thom and Aaron Banks leaving the game once again due to injury. The Browns defense did their job against the Packers, making sure that Love was never comfortable, and Myles Garrett showed why he’s a great player. But don’t get too caught up on the loss, Oates says, the Packers have a history of overlooking an opponent. Maybe now certain players will stop running their mouths about how the Green and Gold are unstoppable… 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, there’s one big question on the minds of Madison sports fans these days: can the Badgers Football team stay relevant? After their loss to Alabama this weekend, Oates thinks they look no better off than they were last year. Sure, they’ve made some changes and added some veteran players, but that didn’t pay off on the field. We weren’t expecting them to beat Alabama, but their blowout loss was tough. Sure, they are down their starting quarterback, but that doesn’t excuse everything. Oates says it all comes down to recruiting. Wisconsin high schools are great at making really good offensive linemen, and the Badgers pursued none of them this year. Instead, the state’s top prospects went to Notre Dame and Minnesota. If they want to run the ball, which we assume they do, they need a good offensive line. To not recruit Wisconsin linemen means their entire offense is going to suffer.

This weekend the Badgers will take on Maryland in their first Big 10 matchup of the year. Maryland might hold a 3-0 record, but the Badgers are still favored. It might be the last time in a long while they enter a game favored, maybe even the last time this season depending on how Minnesota and Washington shape up. If they beat Maryland on Saturday, then we can breathe a sigh of relief and start to really look at the rest of the conference matchups. If they lose, then everyone has to be on notice. Because after Saturday, the Badgers will be facing a murderers row of tough teams for weeks. They need to start developing a winning attitude, and to do that you need to win some conference games.  

One thing on the Badgers side is that nobody seems to have turf toe, which can’t be said about the NFL. Quarterbacks have been going down across the league, including Joe Burrow who will be out for months at least with turf toe. Jayden Daniels, Justin Fields, and JJ McCarthy are also out with injury. The Packers understand just how hard it is to play competitively when you lose your starting quarterback. At least the Bengals have moves to make, signing former Packer Sean Clifford onto their squad. Speaking of, the Packers will take on the Browns on Sunday after another dominant victory last week. Still, Green Bay shouldn’t take them too lightly. They have some good players in Cleveland, they just make a lot of bad quarterback decisions. Add on the mounting injuries the Packers are already facing, and they can’t assume an easy victory on Sunday. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Lucas and Oates return to the Greenbush Bar on Regent Street in Madison as part of the Capitol Times Idea Fest. This time, they’re joined by a special guest: former Badger Men’s Hockey player and coach Tony Granato. In addition to four years as a player for the Badgers and eight years as their head coach, Granato also coached Team USA in the Olympics in hockey in 2018, and helped the Badgers win the Big 10 championship in 2021. Since leaving Wisconsin, Granato has entered the realm of docuseries with Fight for Life with Tony Granato, which you can watch the first installment of on NHL Network.

Granato, Lucas and Oates touch on a slew of topics in this one-hour special episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast: from having to play as a rat in the NHL, to the Fight for Life docuseries, living in Wisconsin as a Chicago sports fan, NIL in modern college sports, Mike Leckrone and more. Of course, they also take a look at last week’s Badger Football win and what they need to do to go home happy against Alabama this weekend, and whether or not it’s too early to think about the Packers going to the Super Bowl. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Lucas and Oates start with a big announcement: next week they’ll be recording the podcast live at the Greenbush Bar and Italian Workman’s Club on Regent Street and you’re invited. They’ll be joined by Tony Granato for a special recording of the Wisconsin Sportscast on Tuesday, September 9 from 6-7 pm. You can find more information at https://captimesideafest.com/wisconsin-sportscast/.

Meanwhile on the rest of the show, Micah Parsons was traded by the Cowboys to Green Bay last week. He’ll be wearing a #1 jersey, which is a bit of a rarity in Green Bay as the last player to wear that number was Curly Lambeau nearly 100 years ago. Oates figures that Curly would have to approve of Parsons taking that number, as with that one trade the Packers have moved up the list to one of the biggest superbowl contenders of the year. Yes, there is a little worry about his back, but he’s supposedly played through his injury before. Parsons was one of the best football players in all of the Big 10 when he played for Penn State and has continued to grow from there. The Parsons trade is big enough to overhaul the entire defense, Oates thinks, and you’d be stupid not to build it around him. But that doesn’t mean that Rashan Gary and Lukas Van Ness will be cast aside. Lucas thinks this will only uplift them both as all the pressure will be put on stopping Parsons, giving them a chance to shine. 

The price to get Parsons was steep: two first round draft picks and Kenny Clark plus his historic salary. Clark will certainly be missed, as he has been turning into a team leader in recent years. But he’s also turning 30 soon and this year will be his 10th in the NFL. That takes a real toll on a player, and while he’s still a great player he isn’t the difference maker that Parsons is. The Packers take on the Lions this Sunday, and if Green Bay shows up to compete it’ll be an interesting game to watch. While they do have a habit of not showing up for the first game of the season, it’s do or die for a championship this year and everyone in that locker room knows it. 

Moving to Badgers Football, Madison beat Miami over the weekend in what was an encouraging game to watch. That is, except for Billy Edwards getting hurt with a noncontact injury that’ll leave him out against Middle Tennessee this weekend. But what we did see from Edwards was impressive. He looked like a real experienced college football quarterback, making nice throws and having some good movement. The Badgers were equally impressive on defense, Oates thought, with guys like Mason Reiger making some seriously aggressive and explosive moves. There is real promise throughout the entire team as they stay in Madison to play Middle Tennessee this Saturday afternoon. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, college football season is finally here as the Badgers return to Camp Randall on Thursday night to take on the Miami RedHawks. It’s been a while since the Badgers last played on a Thursday night, but their last Thursday game was memorable. That was the game dubbed by Lucas as “The Shoebox Game,” when just a few hours before kickoff the team announced that over two dozen players had been suspended. They still beat Western Michigan that night, or at least survived. This Thursday, though, should feel a little better for the Badgers. Oates will be especially watching their defense, which while mostly new to the team is full of veterans and going up against a mostly new offensive line from Miami. The Badgers won’t have, however, Nyzier Forqurean, as he’s still tied up in the courts. Maybe if he had played at a junior college for a year, he’d be on the field Thursday night…

Speaking of college football, Fox’s College Game Day will look a little different this year without Lee Corso. Corso is retiring, and Lucas anticipates the tributes to him will be a little emotional. Corso’s been with the program for decades; for many people he IS the program. He’s something college football really needs: a character. He was a very good coach at various programs over the years, even with a career losing record. But he was equal parts goofy while wearing mascot heads and super sharp about the game of football. His presence will be missed.

Speaking of tributes, the Brewers held their celebration of life for Bob Uecker on Sunday. Even though Trevor McGill blew the game at the end, the entire broadcast was a great tribute to one of the only universally beloved figures in Wisconsin. Even Vince Lombardi was respected, but not loved. Uecker loved to make people laugh, and while everyone loved the bad games when he’d tell his stories he was still one of the best people you want in the booth calling a baseball game. Uecker was originally hired as a scout for the team after his on the field career ended, but he wasn’t suited for that. Everyone in Wisconsin can agree that his role was in the broadcast booth. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Lucas and Oates are taking in a change of scenery at the Greenbush Bar! During this live show at our wonderful sponsor, it’s all about success for the Brewers, the Packers, and the Badgers. 

Recording on Tuesday evening before the second Brewers/Cubs game of the day, Milwaukee is no longer in their historic winning streak but that doesn’t mean they aren’t playing well. Maybe too well, says some pundits, who fear that they’re peaking too early and will fall apart in the offseason. Now, it’s a little too early to be talking about magic numbers, but Oates isn’t concerned. Teams have stretches of good and bad play, and if you can get on a hot streak you take it when you can. Nobody was expecting them to continue their lossless streak forever. But now with Jackson Chourio and Rhys Hoskins about to come back from injury, Lucas and Oates think they’re only going to get hotter. They play baseball the way it used to be played: very fast and with a lot of manufactured runs. Their offense is turning on in a major way, and they excel at putting the ball in play. Even when they don’t hit, they’re also excelling at taking a lot of pitches and wearing down a pitcher. 

What would be success for the Brewers? Oates says an appearance at the World Series is what should be expected. Like a lot of Wisconsin sports teams, they’ve been able to get to the playoffs, but then fall apart. They need to make it all the way to the end this year, whether they win or not.

Turning to the Packers now, Jordan Love is back on the field and throwing passes after his thumb surgery. What would a successful season for Green Bay look like? Some sort of playoff success, Oates says. They too have been able to reliably get into the playoffs, but they always seem to fall apart. They’ve had good teams with great quarterbacks, but they just haven’t been able to go that extra step. It’ll be a big year for both Love and Matt LaFleur as they both try to prove that they deserve to be there.

Finally, what would success look like for the Badgers football team? Well, we can’t really expect them to have playoff success like the Packers or Brewers. But they need to make it to a bowl game this year. If they can do that and end up with a 6-6 record, that should be looked at positively. It should be a rebuild year for Madison this year, hopefully one without an air raide offense…

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Packers had their first preseason game over the weekend, it was a disappointment. Not only did they lose and look unready to play, but Jordan Love was hurt and will be missing the rest of the preseason. He had surgery earlier this week on his thumb, though he should be ready to go by the opener. While that’s about the best possible news you could get when you hear “starting quarterback” and “surgery” in the same sentence, it’s still some cause for concern. He had a few injuries last year, but none of them were recurring. When you have several separate injuries, it just means he’s getting hurt, Oates says. It’s when someone has recurring injuries when people should be concerned. 

Love isn’t the only injured player on the Packers roster. Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, and Romeo Doubs all also went down with various injuries. If Matthew Golden had any worries about playtime this year, those worries should be put to rest. Reed is the biggest worry of the bunch, Oates says. He might be the Packers best receiver, and not having him at the season opener will hurt a lot. 

Of course, the Brewers remain the talk of the town. They still hold the best league in all of baseball, and it’s starting to feel like they just can’t lose (though this podcast was recorded Tuesday evening before they took on Paul Skenes and the Pirates). Pat Murphy had a good way of describing the team: woodpeckers. They just keep going and going and driving you nuts. One of their biggest concerns at the beginning of the year was hitting, especially at the bottom of the lineup, and now they are scoring 4-5 runs a game reliably without a ton of power. They’re a team that’s really learned how to just put the ball in play, something that comes in handy when you can’t afford any of the league's big name sluggers. Al LaBouef is the team's head hitting coach, and has contributed greatly to turning the team into a persistent powerhouse. He coached most of the guys in the minors, so most of the team is already highly familiar with him. What he’s done is make a team that creates a ton of fun-to-watch at bats. Are Brewers fans getting maybe a little too excited? Maybe, but what you can’t say is that the team getting to where they are now is nothing but a fluke. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.