Wisconsin football recruiting: UW offers 2023 5-star RB Rueben Owens II

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 RB Rueben Owens II (El Campo, Texas) out of El Campo High School received a scholarship offer from the Badgers on Friday, one day after decommitting from Texas. Owens, who has said Texas is still the leader in his recruitment, also has offers from Alabama, Auburn, Baylor, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Miami (Fla.), Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn State, Southern Cal, Texas A&M and many, many others.

Standing at 5-foot-11 and weighing 187 pounds, Owens is rated as the No. 24 player and No. 2 RB nationally by the 247 Composite and he’s also listed as the No. 4 player in the state of Texas. During his sophomore season he ran the ball 140 times for 1,511 yards and 22 touchdowns while also catching five passes for 114 yards and another score. He was named Texas District 12-4A-I Offensive MVP last season for his efforts.

Once I got over the fact that El Campo’s quarterback turns into a lead blocker on a lot of their toss plays, I was able to focus on Owens’ running ability. And, well, it turns out the 5-star recruit from Texas is a really danged good football player. He has sprinter’s speed and gets to his top speed, uh, quickly. He doesn’t get tackled easily and can make guys miss in the open field too. He is another guy who would gain a TON of yards at Wisconsin, but it’s obviously unclear what Owens thinks of the Badgers. It would be a boon to get him on campus, but I think Gary Brown will have to put in a lot of work to get that to happen.