Wisconsin football recruiting: a new offer for a 2022 TE went out [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

• 2022 3-star (247Sports standalone rankings) TE Jack Nickel (Alpharetta, Ga.) out of Milton High School received an offer from the Wisconsin Badgers on Tuesday afternoon. Nickel has around 20 offers including ones from Florida State, Kentucky, Michigan State, Nebraska, Colorado, Georgia Tech, Purdue, USF, Virginia Tech and others.

Nickel is a 6-foot-4 and 230 pound TE that is rated as the No. 12 tight end in the 2022 class by 247Sports. His Hudl page lists all of these accomplishments so far in his young high school career: Under Armour All-American, Adidas Freshman All-American, starter as a freshman on 2018 7A Georgia State Champions, All-Region 7A, first team MaxPreps Freshman All-American.

Nickel is not particularly elusive or quick but he is sure-handed and uses his large frame to shield the ball from smaller defenders well. He is also a willing blocker that finishes all of his assignments with gusto. Last season he caught 27 passes for 327 yards and three scores, which is extremely promising for a sophomore.

The Badgers have produced a number of promising tight ends so they should probably be in the mix for Nickel for a while. We’ve reached out to him to see if he has a timeline or a group of favorite schools yet, but it’s still early in his recruitment.

UPDATE: 5/5/20, 4:56 p.m. CST

I talked to Nickel via Twitter DM and asked him a couple of questions. I will not bury the lede, though, as Nickel noted that Gronk was his favorite TE of all time so we KNOW this dude is going to like Madison when he comes and visits.

Nickel said that John Settle recruits his area of the country and that they had been talking for a couple of weeks before being offered today.

I asked him if he had any sort of early list of schools he liked and he said, “I’m really just keeping all my options open right now because it’s still early, but Wisconsin checks a lot of boxes and I’m very interested.”

When asked to describe his playing style, Nickel said “I’m an all around tight end. I can make a difference in the receiving game and I can also block to make a difference in the run game.”

Nickel was also impressed by how the Badgers use their tight ends, “They didn’t have to really “sell” me on their TE tradition because I already know they use the TE a lot. Wisconsin’s tight ends do a lot of things I do in my current offense.”