Wisconsin football recruiting: early signing day is coming up!

Recruiting is the lifeblood of any major college athletics team, but following it closely as a fan can sometimes be difficult and can often be time consuming. We’ll try and condense all the recruiting news you can use into this bi-weekly (sometimes more) post. It’ll include updates on current commits, including stats from their high school games, as well as news on players the Badgers are still pursuing. Let’s get down to business!

• 2021 3-star OLB/DE Darryl Peterson (Akron, Ohio) was recently named the cleveland.com Defensive Player of the Year for Cuyahoga and the six counties that border it. Peterson helped Archbishop Hoban (11-0) win its fifth OHSAA state championship in six years and also finish No. 1 in cleveland.com’s rankings.

Peterson, if we are being fair, had a bit of a down season in 2020 compared to his junior year in 2019. He only had 17.5 sacks this year, compared with his school-record 21 back in 2019. Smh, Darryl, get it together man! He did add two forced fumbles to his resume this year, so that’s a positive development.

• The early signing period for college football starts on Dec. 16, which kinda sneaked up on us (read: me) to be honest. We will obviously have a ton of coverage for you that day and week with as much information about the 2021 recruiting class as you can handle. As of typing this sentence it seems like the Badgers should have their whole class signed, sealed and delivered next week, but there are a few prospects who have already tweeted out confirmation.

WR Skyler Bell, QB Deacon Hill and CB Al Ashford III have also tweeted out various versions of the above messages about signing on Dec. 16. It will be an exciting day for these players as they are realizing the first part of their dream to play big time college football.

• Is 2021 3-star ILB Jake Chaney angling (WORD PLAY) to be the best fisherman on the team?