Wisconsin football recruiting: a new WR receives an offer [UPDATE]

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 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!

New offer

• 2021 3-star WR Skyler Bell (the Bronx, New York City, N.Y.) out of The Taft School in Watertown, Conn. announced via his Twitter account that he had received an offer from the Wisconsin Badgers and head coach Paul Chryst.

Bell’s recruitment is expected to come to an end in a little under three weeks, as he tweeted that he was making a decision on May 20th this past Monday. After speaking with Bell briefly via Twitter DM, he told me that he still plans on committing on the 20th and that he told wide receivers coach Alvis Whitted the same thing. He did note that right after their phone conversation that Whitted and Mickey Turner sent him some videos about the football program and the campus as a whole.

Currently the team that seems the most likely to secure his commitment is Iowa, although Rutgers, Virginia Tech, Northwestern, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest are still in the mix according to his top-six tweet.

The 6-foot-1 and 185 pound wideout is reported to have run a 4.49 40-yard dash, according to his Hudl page, and had 36 catches for 549 yards and eight touchdowns last season. He also had 316 kick return yards and two scores on special teams.

Bell shows his impressive speed on a couple short passes in his Hudl tape where it looks like there is no way he is going to score a touchdown and then he does, simply by running past defenders. He also shows a great ability to track the deep ball, on one play readjusting his route twice while the ball is in midair to make the catch.

I wouldn’t hold out much hope on the Badgers prying Bell away from the Hawkeyes, especially with the inability to actually get him on campus, but if he’s the type of wideout that Whitted is looking for, Wisconsin should have some electric playmakers on campus soon.

UPDATE 5/15/20, 10:56 a.m. CT: Bell has pushed back his commitment date according to his Twitter account. Hopefully this means he’ll take a longer look at the Badgers, who didn’t get involved with an offer until recently.