Is Mike Vrabel heading back to the college coaching ranks?

Though he won’t be coaching in the NFL this season, it doesn’t look like former Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel will be completely away from football in 2024.

In a recent radio interview with ESPN Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell, a close personal friend of Vrabel’s, noted that the 2022 AP NFL Coach of the Year would be involved with the Badgers in some sort of capacity this season.

“I talked to him, I think, on Saturday, and we hadn't communicated for probably a week or so just because the process was going,” Fickell said. “He sounded like a new man. And I'm not sure exactly if this was his choice, or what it is the future looks like, but I know that we're going to have a visitor here that's going to spend a little bit of time, hopefully around us. Starting, coming up in the spring and some things like that, see how much, how deep we can get involved with my buddy and get him around here.”

Both Vrabel and Fickell were teammates during their playing days at Ohio State from 1993 to 1996. The Buckeyes went 41-8-1 with two co-Big Ten championships during their tenure. 

The duo reunited 15 years late on the Ohio State coaching staff with Vrabel serving as linebackers coach in 2011 before moving to defensive line coach in 2012 and 2013 while Fickell served as interim head coach in 2011 before moving back to co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach in 2012 and 2013.