Wisconsin football recruiting: two new offers go out and an update on Micah Riley-Drucker

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 offers

• 2023 4-star (247Sports only) DE Enow Etta (Colleyville, Texas) out of Covenant Christian Academy announced late Monday night that he has received a scholarship offer from the Badgers. Wisconsin is just his third offer as he also holds scholarships from Arizona State and Vanderbilt right now.

Standing at 6-foot-4 and weighing 220 pounds, Etta has room to add some weight to his frame to play a 3-4 DE, but he could also end up as a rush OLB if Wisconsin wanted him there. According to 247 Sports’ standalone rankings, Etta is the No. 10 DE and No. 162 player overall in the nation. He is also listed as the No. 17 player in Texas.

Line play is difficult to evaluate at the high school level, especially for someone like me who doesn’t fully understand the esoteric technical stuff a lineman needs to do, but Etta looks like he has serious upside. There are multiple highlights of him getting his hand up to swat a pass if he can’t get to the QB and he even has a blocked punt in there too. He also sets the edge well on plays and keeps rushers from getting to the corner.

Recruiting in Texas will always be tough, as it is a state that every school in the country looks to for talent, but getting in early on a prospect like Etta could pay off in the long run for UW.

• 2023 4-star ATH/WR Rodney Gallagher (Uniontown, Pa.) out of Laurel Highlands High School received a scholarship offer from Wisconsin on Monday afternoon, per his Twitter account. Gallagher has a handful of other offers already from Arizona State, Michigan, Michigan State, NC State, Ole Miss, Penn State, Pitt, West Virginia and others. It should definitely be noted that the Nittany Lions have also offered him as a basketball player. As a sophomore he averaged 19.4 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 5.4 apg and 2.1 spg.

Standing at an even 6-foot and weighing around 165 pounds, Gallagher is rated as the No. 40 player and No. 5 ATH in the country by the 247Composite as well as the top player in the state of Pennsylvania. His Hudl profile lists his positions as QB, WR and SS and it is unclear where the Badgers see his future, but he clearly would be an asset at multiple spots given his athletic profile.

Holy crap, this kid is ELECTRIC with the ball in his hands. I know that a lot of these highlight tapes can be boring and repetitive for the casual fan, but I urge you to at least watch the first clip on Gallagher’s. It is an interception return for the ages.

Gallagher is fast and changes speeds well, like a point guard. He is tough to tackle and has impressive ball skills and leaping ability, especially for someone who is only 6-foot tall. I don’t really see him as a QB for Wisconsin, but he would immediately make the WRs or DBs better if he came to Madison.

Official visits drama

• This was reported multiple places, and you can read about it further at Badger247 ($), but the gist is: 2022 3-star TE Micah Riley-Drucker (Bellevue, Neb.) is no longer taking an official visit to Wisconsin and is instead going to check out Bret Bielema’s Illinois program.

Riley-Drucker was thought to be a player that was high on Wisconsin’s board for the 2022 class, with him even saying that he was their top TE target. Many recruiting analyst types even had him pegged as one of the next players to commit to the Badgers as recently as a few weeks ago.

Did Riley-Drucker read too much into what Wisconsin was saying? Or, did the Badgers lead him on? Or, on the completely more likely other hand...did Wisconsin just find someone they like better and Riley-Drucker is doing what’s best for him too?

There is talk that the Badgers may have switched their interest to in-state 3-star TE Andrew Keller (Waunakee) who debuted in 247Sports’ updated rankings ahead of Riley-Drucker. Wisconsin hasn’t offered Keller yet but with them cooling on Riley-Drucker that may change shortly.