Wisconsin football recruiting: news roundup from another big official visit weekend

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!

Other visitors from last weekend

• 3-star WR Tommy McIntosh appeared to enjoy his visit to Madison.

• Avyonne Jones, a Texas native, had a bunch of tweets from the weekend showing he had a great time. Jones, who is a close friend of current Badgers CB, and fellow Texan, Caesar Williams, got the VIP treatment from Williams and the rest of the defensive backs. With the Badgers already having one CB commit in the class, how many more will they take? Jones could be next as he was RTing all of the other UW commits earlier this week.

• Big defensive lineman KJ Miles, who is pals with recent commit A’Khoury Lyde since they are both out of New Jersey, also looked good in cardinal and white.

• I know we, and especially I, can be cynical about college sports and all of the things that need to be fixed to make it better, but posts like the one below are what reminds us that there is still a lot of good in college athletics.

Terrence Burkett, the father of 3-star QB Myles Burkett, posted pictures of Myles, taken six years apart, in the same spot at Camp Randall Stadium. Seeing an in-state kid realize his dream of playing for the Badgers is one of the coolest things you can see as a fan, in my humble opinion.

Cristian Driver is NOT visiting

• 2022 4-star S/WR Cristian Driver (Argyle, Texas) was supposed to be visiting Madison on an official visit this weekend (June 25), going so far as to announce it on Twitter. However, soon after that he posted the below tweet claiming that Wisconsin told him “they cannot get [him] up on campus this weekend” and that “[he] will have to wait until September.”

He goes on to say that he will no longer be making a trip to Madison at all. This all, to be perfectly frank, seems weird as hell. Why would Wisconsin say he couldn’t come visit? This coming weekend is the LEAST busy of the three official visit weekends they’ve had in June and even if it were busy...so what? Maybe Wisconsin feels like they have another safety prospect who is ready to commit (Austin Brown perhaps?) and don’t want to make Brown upset? Maybe UW has heard that Driver is going to be a Penn State commit and they don’t want to waste both parties’ time? Maybe the Badgers just cooled on him and didn’t want Driver to use an official on a place where he didn’t have a spot?

It’s always tough in these situations because we never hear Wisconsin’s side of the story, but rest assured there is more to this than “Wisconsin didn’t want me to come so now I’m not.”

New number for Mellusi

• Per his Instagram page, transfer running back Chez Mellusi looks like he’ll be wearing No. 27 for the Badgers this year. Even Phil Steele’s preview magazine didn’t have this info, so you can credit Belz forever and always with breaking this news.