The Wisconsin football team was greeted with exciting news Friday in the form of Zander Neuville being granted a sixth year of eligibility and beautiful weather for an August day in Madison. The team practiced for a little over two hours on the grass field just north Camp Randall donning full pads.

In terms of observations, Jack Coan and Chase Wolf both had great days running the offense under center. Coan continues to get the first team work, and looked sharp completing passes to his receiving corps of Danny Davis, Kendric Pryor and Jack Dunn with senior AJ Taylor held out today with a leg injury. Coan had the highlight of the day late in practice, connecting on a post route with Pryor for a would be long score over the top of the defense.

Not to be outdone, redshirt freshman Chase Wolf made a lot of good plays with the second team. He threw touchdown passes to Aron Cruickshank and Adam Krumholz during team situations, and also threw a touchdown to walk-on freshman Cooper Nelson in skelly work. He seems to have a good command of the offense, and has shown the ability to keep plays alive with his mobility and throw well on the run. If the season were to start tomorrow, I would think Coan and then Wolf would be the two players seen at the top of the depth chart based on the practices seen thus far.

The offensive line did not have their best day of fall camp however. The first group in front of Coan remained the same (Beach, Lyles, Erdmann, Seltzner, Bruss) with Cole Van Lanen and Tyler Biadasz still limited, but there were some protection breakdowns, false starts, and bad snaps that foiled the group on the day.

One reason for the tough day for the offensive line was the play of the players going against them. The defense was able to generate a good pass rush, and did a great job restraining the offense for most of practice. With Zack Baun out today with a chest injury, Noah Burks and Izayah Green-May took most of the outside linebacker reps with the first team defense, and both players had some strong moments in practice. Christian Bell and Tyler Johnson were the second group at that position, while CJ Goetz and Jaylan Franklin also saw reps with the second group as well on the outside.

The defense seems to be in a better place now compared to last year at this time, with the team doing a good job of stuffing the run, and covering in the secondary.

Last team note: Zach Hintze was first up for field goals with holder Connor Allen, and appeared to be the most accurate of the kickers on Friday.

Individual standouts

Some players who stood out specifically during camp today:

• Reggie Pearson - he continues to build on a strong camp as one of the starting safeties, including praise from Paul Chryst after practice for his growth during the spring and during fall camp.
• Izayah Green-May
• A.J. Abbott - the lengthy redshirt freshman out of Michigan hauled in a nice touchdown catch in addition to some great receptions during skelly drills.
• C.J. Goetz - although listed on the official roster as a defensive end, the redshirt freshman has been playing at OLB lately. Seems like a more natural position given his size and his ability to get after the passer.
• Kendric Pryor / Danny Davis - the starting wideouts each made some great catches on the day, something they have been doing all throughout camp
• Rachad Wildgoose - the sophomore had a couple nice pass breakups in team situations.

The football team will have two weekend practices that are closed to the media upcoming, but Bucky’s 5th Quarter will be back to take in the action Monday.