Badger Bits: What's a Cizauskas?

Because it's important to note when potentially great things first crossed paths, this quote from 2015 quarterback Austin Kafentzis on 2014 linebacker Dominic Cizauskas has now officially been marked for posterity courtesy of the Wisconsin State Journal:

"We saw him run, and he looked really good," Kafentzis said. "That's not playing football, but he looked good and you can kind of tell when someone's a football player and when someone's not. We thought he was a lineman because he was so big."

Cizauskas is a 250-pound senior-to-be who ran a self-reported 4.59 in the 40 at Minnesota's summer camp last week. The Gophers also worked Cizauskas on offense, where he apparently excelled because he left camp with an offer. Lucas Trickle at Gopher Illustrated stuck Cizauskas at the top of his Minnesota's Most Wanted list and had this to say:

The Wisconsin native received his first Big Ten offer from the Golden Gopher coaching staff after an impressive camp performance last Sunday. At 6-foot-1 and 250 pounds, Cizauskas is already big enough to play in the Big Ten. The Mukwonago linebacker is planning to camp at Michigan State on Saturday and Wisconsin on Tuesday. If Wisconsin offers, many consider Cizausksas as good as gone.

Very prescient, and very encouraging. Cizauskas is currently a no-star recruit who has nowhere to go up but up in the minds of recruiting services, but whose star is quickly rising nonetheless. It's been a good work for Wisconsin recruiting, and yes I'm including that Craig Evans tweet that Mike pointed out yesterday.

LINKS:

Happy Ed O'Bannon class certification hearing day! Here's a primer via SI's Michael McCann and a slightly more digestible column by Andy Staples. In sum, today is potentially a very big day for the future of the NCAA.

Hillary Lee with a primer on Wisconsin's coaching staff as part of Wisconsin Week at OTE. Get your t-shirt!

Camp Randall is now available for wedding photos at the LOW LOW price of $250 per half hour.

There won't be a dry-run College Football Playoff selection committee in 2013, which is all kinds of disappointing.

Bret Bielema wants college football to slow down for safety reasons:

"Not to get on the coattails of some of the other coaches, there is a lot of truth that the way offensive philosophies are driven now, there's times where you can't get a defensive substitution in for 8, 10, 12 play drives," Bielema said. "That has an effect on safety of that student-athlete, especially the bigger defensive linemen, that is really real."

SB Nation's comment thread is all kinds of fascinating. And EDSBS, of course.

Penn State loses a BBaller.

Grantland on the rise and fall of "Sports of the Times."