Wisconsin football recruiting: UW adds top long snapper Keane Bessert to 2023 class

On Friday afternoon, the Wisconsin Badgers special teams unit received some good news on the recruiting trail. 2023 LS Keane Bessert (Fruita, Colo.) out of Fruita Monument High School announced that he’ll be joining the Badgers next season.

While this isn’t as exciting as getting, say, a highly ranked quarterback or EDGE rusher, a team like UW that needs to excel on the margins in order to be competitive with top-tier teams requires a long snapper that doesn’t make mistakes.

Bessert is rated as a 5-star (out of six) long snapper in the ‘23 class by Rubio Long Snapping and listed as the No. 3 prospect in the country. The Rubio rankings system notes that a 5-star prospect is likely a “FBS Freshman Year Starter, Scholarship Pick.”

Standing at 6-foot-1 and weighing 220 pounds, Bessert already has good size for the position and should add a few more pounds once he’s in Madison to hold up against Big Ten rushers.

While scrolling through his Twitter account, it appears that he had another walk-on opportunity with Iowa State and was also receiving interest from Georgia, Kansas State and Oregon. He visited Madison back in April for a spring practice and earned his walk-on offer on June 14 after camping with the Badgers.

After accepting his offer with Wisconsin, Rubio Long Snapping noted:

Keane absolutely crushed it at the Rubio Long Snapping TOP 12 Camp on Jul 12-14, 2022. He passes an eyeball test quickly and snaps one of the most powerful balls in his class. He has great form, uses his whole body and snaps like a caveman....and I love it! Moves really well on his feet and he can snap and block. The upside on this great, hard working Long Snapper is off the charts. Keane could be snapping a ball for a long, long time. The Badgers are getting a great one on and off the filed in Keane.

I will freely admit that my long snapper scouting is not exactly, uh, a thing I do, so I’m happy to hear from someone that is good at scouting them saying Bessert is a top-tier prospect.

The Badgers have three long snappers on the roster currently (junior Peter Bowden, sophomore Duncan McKinley, redshirt freshman Zach Zei) so Bessert probably won’t start as a freshman unless Bowden gets hurt, but should challenge for the top job in his second year on campus.