2021 RB Loyal Crawford verbally commits to Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Badgers added another member to their 2021 football recruiting class on Thursday evening. Loyal Crawford, a 247 Sports 3-star rated running back (46th best running back overall) from Eau Claire, Wisconsin (Memorial), jumped at the chance to join the Badgers backfield and verbally committed according to Jon McNamara of Rivals.

Crawford, who is 6’ tall and weighs 190 pounds, hadn’t received any other offers before committing to UW, but had interest from Iowa, Northern Illinois, North Dakota State, Illinois State, North Dakota and South Dakota according to Rivals and Notre Dame and Northwestern were also sniffing around according to Evan Flood at 247. Jake Kocorowski, who may have worked somewhere else previously but I can’t be sure, of Rivals mentions that Crawford camped in Madison in June and then received his offer on July 23rd.

Crawford is the fourth member of the 2021 class for the Badgers, joining 4-star offensive lineman JP Benzschawel, 3-star quarterback Deacon Hill and 3-star running back Jackson Acker. The Badgers class ranks sixth in the country now on 247 Sports, but they are ahead of Minnesota and Iowa (seventh and eighth respectively) only due to quantity, not quality.

Now that Crawford is in the fold, three of the four players in the 2021 class hail from the Badger State. Benzschawel is from Grafton and Acker, who is also a running back, is from Verona. Paul Chryst has really rebuilt the wall around the state that Barry Alvarez said was so important when he was hired.

The young tailback appears to hit the hole hard when he’s running and then has a little bit of speed to run away from defenders. With two more years to improve, the Badgers have to be pretty happy with their latest commitment.