Wisconsin football recruiting: UW offers 3-star RB Dylan Edwards out of Kansas

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 3-star RB Dylan Edwards (Derby, Kan.) out of Derby High School tweeted out that he received an offer from Wisconsin on Friday. Edwards also has offers from Arizona, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Memphis, Minnesota, North Texas and West Virginia as well as one FCS school (Tennessee Tech).

Edwards isn’t super tall, as he is listed anywhere between 5-foot-7 and 5-foot-9 on various recruiting sites. He also only weighs somewhere between 155 lbs. and 165 lbs., but he, uh, makes up for his slight stature with obscene levels of production. Last season at Derby (a Kansas state champion in 2020), Edwards rushed for 1,833 yards and 28 touchdowns in 11 games. He added 204 yards and two scores on 16 catches out of the backfield too.

In the mold of other smaller backs, Edwards uses his size to his advantage by hiding behind his offensive line and then appearing in the hole, running at full speed past defenders. His ability to slither through cracks in the defense is impressive as his speed in the open field.

Edwards can catch the ball well out of the backfield and he is also dangerous on special teams, returning kicks and punts for large chunks of yardage in his highlight tape. He is the type of player that I think would do well as a jet sweep option at Wisconsin and as a change of pace from some of the bigger tailbacks on the roster.

He doesn’t have any early favorites, but he admires Iowa State RB Breece Hall (who is from close to Edwards’ hometown) and may want to follow in his footsteps. I’d guess that Wisconsin’s running back tradition will be a big selling point and hopefully UW can get him on campus this fall too.