Wisconsin football recruiting: rankings discussion and offers to the 2022 Super Six

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 (or more often since we are in Uncertain Times and there aren’t actual sports going on) 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 offers to the 2022 Super Six

• We’ve all heard by now that the in-state class for 2022 is the best for Wisconsin in the internet recruiting rankings history. There are six players in the 247Sports Composite, all rated 4-stars, and the Wisconsin Badgers are hoping to keep all six home. The first domino fell earlier this week when 4-star S Braelon Allen (Fond du Lac) announced his commitment and he’s already been on the recruiting trail himself, talking to the other in-state kids.

Isaac Hamm is a 4-star DE out of Sun Prairie who is continuing to receive interest from other schools in the B1G and Allen is already letting him know what he should do with those offers.

Purdue was apparently making the rounds in Wisconsin this week as they also offered 4-star WR/TE Jerry Cross (Milwaukee) recently. Cross is the lowest ranted of the six and is still the No. 190 player in the nation. Let that sink in.

4-star OG Carson Hinzman (Hammond) received a pretty impressive pair of offers this past week with Tennessee and Stanford offering scholarships. Jon McNamara of BadgerBlitz noted in a tweet that the Cardinal rarely offer players this early, so this is a big deal for them.

It will be a battle for the Badgers to keep all six kids home, but Allen was thought of as one of the guys who might leave and he’s already on board. Can Wisconsin go six for six? Unlikely, but they’re off to a great start.

ESPN releases new rankings

• On Wednesday, ESPN released their class of 2022 ESPN 300. All of the six in-state kids who comprise the Super Six were included. Here are their rankings:

No. 44, OT Joe Brunner, Whitefish Bay
No. 127, S Braelon Allen, Fond du Lac
No. 149, OG Carson Hinzman, Hammond
No. 181, WR Jerry Cross, Milwaukee
No. 194, DE Isaac Hamm, Sun Prairie
No. 239, OL/DL Billy Schrauth, Fond du Lac

This is more good news for these kids as they are being recognized by every major recruiting service as supremely talented.

Hollering about rankings

• In these Unprecedented Times, a lot of what we’ve had to discuss has been recruiting related. We’ve hollered about commitments, missed commitments, visits and the like. However, there will never be more hollering than when new rankings come out.

The prospects were obviously excited about the new ESPN rankings but there is one specific ranking from 247Sports that seemed to set off most of the current Wisconsin commits. On Thursday, Braelon Allen’s ranking went down and his position was changed to ILB on his 247Sports profile.

Now, Allen’s tweet is from the day before his ranking changed but his point still stands. A lot of these recruits take umbrage with the recruiting ranking industrial complex. Wisconsin seems to have a particular bone to pick with these rankings because a lot of the in-state players are often under-ranked and come into college with a chip on their shoulder. Honestly, that’s probably been a good thing for the Badgers as they are able to keep talented kids in state without much competition, but presumably the kids themselves get upset.

As alluded to by 2021 EDGE Darryl Peterson here, a lot of these rankings can be almost political in nature. If you go to a Rivals camp, you are more likely to see a bump in your Rivals rating. Who knows how true this is, but it isn’t unbelievable. Maybe someone would say it outrig...oh, here we go!

Quite frankly, it is nice to see all of these players have an “us against the world” mentality before they even set foot on campus. It provides a strong bond in each class and will hopefully translate to results on the field.

Potential commitment date???

• 2022 4-star WR/TE Jerry Cross (Milwaukee) announced on Twitter Friday afternoon that he’d be committing on Friday evening. Hey! Good news for the Badgers possibly! That tweet is now deleted and 20 minutes after it, he tweeted this:

I will not go into detail on what the 247Sports boards were saying about all this except to say that Cross was trying to commit to a school that was surprised by him wanting to commit there so soon. I hate being vague, but I’m not posting paywalled stuff on here.

Fall sports being cancelled

• The top WR on Wisconsin’s board for 2021, Skyler Bell (The Bronx) of The Taft (Connecticut) School, had his senior season cancelled. That is terrible news and I feel very bad for him and the rest of his teammates, some of whom may have only had one year of football left in their careers.