Wisconsin football recruiting: UW offers 2023 5-star ATH

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 offer

• 2023 5-star ATH Samuel M’Pemba (St. Louis) out of IMG (Bradenton, Fla.) Academy received an offer from the Wisconsin Badgers on Tuesday. M’Pemba has a couple dozen offers including from schools such as Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Michigan, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn State, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Washington and others.

Standing at 6-foot-4 and weighing 230 pounds, M’Pemba has played DE, OLB and WR in his first two years of high school ball. Rivals national recruiting analyst Josh Helmholdt took in IMG’s spring practice a week ago and had this to say about M’Pemba:

A two-way prospect who lined up at wide receiver, linebacker and defensive end as a sophomore, M’Pemba was working at receiver on Thursday despite measuring in at 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds. That freakish size/athleticism combination is why M’Pemba starts out as the No. 1-ranked athlete prospect in the 2023 class.

Helmholdt also noted that M’Pemba had just arrived at IMG a few weeks prior after playing his first two high school seasons back home in St. Louis at Ladue Horton Watkins High School.

Rated as the No. 1 ATH and No. 17 player in the country for the 2023 class by the 247 Composite, he is also listed as the No. 4 player in Missouri.

Watching his highlight film it is immediately apparent that lining this kid up at wide receiver is just unfair. He’s so much bigger and more athletic than anyone trying to cover him that his QB just lobs it up and let’s him Moss defenders. On defense, he is quick and gets around offensive linemen with ease where it looks like he’s almost always held. I don’t know where Wisconsin would want to play M’Pemba, but he looks like a high quality get at multiple positions however, his list of offers will be tough to beat.