Wisconsin football recruiting: UW offers two more blue chip defenders

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

• 2024 DL Justin Scott (Chicago) out of St. Ignatius Prep received an offer from Wisconsin on Wednesday. A fast-rising sophomore, Scott also has offers from Cincinnati, Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Michigan, Mizzou, Tennessee and a handful of others. After watching his Hudl tape, this list will surely grow, and quickly.

Scott, who stands at 6-foot-5 and weighs around 310 pounds, is rated as a 5-star by the On3 Consensus and the No. 3 player and No. 1 defensive lineman in the whole country. 247 hasn’t ranked Scott yet, but Rivals has him as a high 4-star and No. 34 player in the nation. What has to be a frightening bit of news to opposing offensive coordinators is: this past year was Scott’s first playing varsity football, according to Charles Power at On3.

He is shockingly quick for a young man his size and can track down ball carriers from behind while also darting into the backfield to cause havoc behind the line of scrimmage. It is a good thing that the Badgers got in here relatively early because Scott should blow up and attract attention from all over the country.

• 2023 EDGE/DE Hunter Clegg (American Fork, Utah) out of American Fork High School received an offer from the Badgers on Wednesday as well. Covering recruiting is fun because I had never heard of the town American Fork, nor their high school football team known as the Cavemen. What a rich tapestry this country is! Anyways, Clegg has nearly 20 offers currently, but BYU, Southern Cal, Utah and UCLA seem to have separated themselves from the pack a bit. Schools like Auburn, LSU, Michigan, Oregon and Washington have also offered, among others.

Standing at 6-foot-4 and weighing around 235 pounds, Clegg possesses ideal size for an edge rushing position in Wisconsin’s 3-4 defense. The On3 Consensus rates Clegg as a 4-star and the No. 257 player and No. 30 EDGE in the country. The 247 Composite also has Clegg as a 4-star but doesn’t list any of his specific rankings, while the standalone 247 ratings ranks Clegg as the No. 131 player in the country and No. 13 EDGE.

According to the Michigan On3 site ($), Clegg is a native of Ohio and would definitely be interested in returning to Big Ten country for college. His Hudl tape shows an extremely effective pass rusher that has good burst and a tireless motor. It will be interesting to see if he grows any more and whether or not he will be a stand-up OLB or have his hand in the dirt as more of a DE. There weren’t any highlights of him in pass coverage, so he may project as more of a pure pass rusher.