Wisconsin recruiting: UW offers a 4-star RB and a big basketball recruiting weekend is upon us

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!

New football offer

• 2022 4-star RB Jaydn Ott (Norco, Calif.) out of Norco High School recently decommitted from Cal and, in opening back up his recruitment, has started receiving new interest from teams. One of those teams is you Wisconsin Badgers, who offered Ott earlier this week. Since decommitting he has also received an offer from Southern Cal. Ott has an official visit scheduled to Colorado on Oct. 1 and, per Evan Flood of Badger247 ($), will be visiting Madison on an official on Oct. 16.

The Badgers were not going to take a RB in the 2022 class after bringing in four in 2021, but two of those freshmen running backs are now in the transfer portal after a fight in a dorm room that allegedly involved a knife sooooo here we are!

Standing at an even 6-foot and weighing 190 pounds, Ott is rated as the No. 304 player and No. 27 RB in the nation by the 247 Composite. He is also listed as the No. 23 in the state of California. 247 Sports Mountain Region Recruiting Analyst Blair Angulo notes that Ott has “short stature, narrow build and high-upside frame with room to add mass. Long striding tailback with big-play potential. Excellent speed to separate from defenders. Quick to change directions and make would-be tacklers miss. Agility to burst through lanes.”

It will be interesting to see where the Badgers are on Ott’s list after his visit to Madison. The fact that he gave UW a quick official visit must mean there is some interest but he has other offers from Oregon, Georgia and UCLA that could be tough to turn down too.

Football visitors

• 2022 3-star WR Tommy McIntosh (Dewitt, Mich.) will be in town for the Michigan game, according to his dad. 2023 DE Will McDonald (Hudson) will also be in Madison again, presumably both to see his brother Cade play as well as to take another look and see if he’d like to join his brother. As far as I can tell, this isn’t a huge weekend for football recruits, although there are a couple of big names coming that I haven’t seen announced publicly and as you know, we respect the paywall around these parts.

Basketball visitors

• According to Evan Flood ($), there will be at least four top men’s basketball recruits on campus this weekend. The only one that has been publicly confirmed so far is 2023 big man Owen Freeman (Bradley, Ill.) who already stands at 6-foot-10.

If you are an enterprising detective, you can probably figure out the other three players who will be in town, but needless to say...it’s a much bigger weekend for Greg Gard on the recruiting trail than Paul Chryst.

Top targets visiting elsewhere

• 2023 4-star big man Gus Yalden (De Pere) who plays at IMG Academy in Florida will be taking in the Rutgers/Ohio State game in New Jersey this weekend. He is one of Wisconsin’s top targets and has been for some time now.

Top targets committing elsewhere

• Massive 3-star DT Kenneth Grant (Merrillville, Ind.) is heading to Michigan. Grant was a player that was considering UW until the very end although he played a lot of his commitment close to the vest. He took an official visit to Madison and everything but decided on the Wolverines.