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
- 2024 4-star TE Grant Stec (Algonquin, Ill.) out of Jacobs High School earned an offer from Wisconsin last week. The talented tight end has a bunch of offers already, including from Arkansas, Cincinnati, Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Penn State, Tennessee and a few others. He has already visited Iowa City twice, so the Hawkeyes might be in the early lead here, but there is plenty of time for UW to catch up.
After an awesome conversation with @CoachHaering and Head Coach Paul Chryst, I’m honored to say that I have received an offer from the University of Wisconsin-Madison! #Badger @CoachTurnerUW @Wr86Zimm @HDJacobsFBall @HDJ_Athletics @BadgerFootball @UWBadgers pic.twitter.com/NgbfZpaeTK
— Grant Stec (@stec_grant) April 2, 2022
Stec is already Big Ten sized for TE, standing around 6-foot-6 and weighing near 225 pounds. He is rated as a 4-star by the 247 Composite and the No. 221 player and No. 9 TE in the nation. The On3 Consensus also lists him as a 4-star and the No. 145 player and No. 5 TE in the country.
His Hudl tape shows him lining up out wide and with his hand in the dirt and making highlight reel catches from either position. He uses his body well to shield defenders from the ball and has good hands. Stec is a willing blocker and is tough to tackle in space, due to his size not necessarily any “moves” he has after the catch. He could probably highpoint the ball a bit better, especially since he is so tall, but he has two more years of high school football to work on refining his technique.
Madison visitors
- Spring practice is a great time to get prospective recruits on campus for unofficial visits. The weather is (sometimes) nicer, there isn’t high school football taking up a ton of the recruits’ time, and there is live practice to show them where the coaches might be a little bit more able to talk to the recruits than during the fall. The Badgers offered 2024 high 4-star DT Justin Scott (Chicago) back on March 23 and he was in Madison on Monday for an unofficial visit. It’s obviously tough to say where UW stands in Scott’s recruitment, but visiting quickly after getting an offer is definitely not a bad thing for the Badgers.
Great time at Wisconsin this past weekend, will most definitely be back! @Rivals_Clint @CoachTurnerUW @IgnatiusFB @EDGYTIM pic.twitter.com/kYJh5gnVRK
— Justin Scott (@juustinscott) April 5, 2022
- Another visitor from this week is 2023 3-star WR Ty Perkins (Ironton, Ohio). Perkins doesn’t have a Wisconsin offer yet, but at 6-foot-3 he fits the mold of a bigger wideout that Alvis Whitted has been keen on offering. Perkins has a bunch of MAC offers and our old pal Joe Rudolph has offered him at Virginia Tech too. If Wisconsin hopped into this race you’d think they’d be the early favorite right away.
Excited to visit one of the BEST programs in country tomorrow @BadgerFootball. Badger Nation are you ready ⚪️. #OnWisconsin @WisFBRecruiting @CoachWhitted @CoachTurnerUW @CoachAprilUW @bobby_engram @jimleonhard @UWCoachSheridan @Coach_B_Lewis @PoteatCoach @KellerChryst pic.twitter.com/Hju7RSWfvh
— Ty Perkins (@TyPerkinss) April 4, 2022
Good luck in Minnesota, we guess
- 2023 3-star RB Darius Taylor (Walled Lake, Mich.) completed a tour of the Big Ten West (he visited Northwestern, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin) on April 2 and then made his college decision, choosing the Gophers and P.J. Fleck, on April 5.
I’m here Wisconsin… #GoBadgers
— Darius Taylor (@dariustaylor_14) April 2, 2022