We all knew the "we haven't lost a commit even though we changed coaches" ride wouldn't last forever. Thursday morning, the Badgers lost their third recruit in Brandyn Lee, a three-star wide receiver from West Hills (Chaminade), Calif.
Lee tweeted the above to reopen his recruitment. Over on Rivals, Jon McNamara mentions that Lee said the new coaching philosophy did not jibe with him. Lee committed way back in June, but it appears that the coaching upheaval in Madison has him rethinking this. He holds offers from Washington State, Fresno State and Nevada as well.
The Badgers are now left with only one receiver in this year's class, Florida speedster Andrew James. Wisconsin is currently the favorite in 247Sports' Crystal Ball predictions to land three-star Marvin Robinson (WR, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.), which would certainly be nice.
Pitt just can't get any love. That's the punchline here, if you couldn't see it -- Paul Chryst did not spend 2012-14 as the head coach of Penn State. He also was not the offensive coordinator. He was simply the Pitt head coach.
The presumed recipient of the recruiting letter is Jake Heinrich, an Urbandale, Iowa, offensive guard. He camped at Wisconsin over the summer, but it didn't seem like the Badgers had really been recruiting him... until this.
The face-to-face keeps Olive on track. Nice keep here.
Wisconsin has confirmed the hirings of Daronte Jones and Tim Tibesar as defensive backs and outside linebackers coach, respectively.
Jones comes from Hawaii, where he spent the last three seasons as the Warriors' secondary coach. He was also assistant head coach in 2014.
Tibesar most recently worked with Northwestern as a defensive consultant after spending 2013 as the Chicago Bears' linebackers coach. He also spent 2012 as Purdue's defensive coordinator
This means that the only spot Paul Chryst has left to fill on his staff is wide receivers coach.
Wisconsin looks like it will bring back former quarterback Jon Budmayr as an offensive graduate assistant. Unfortunately Budmayr's career was cut short by injury, but he seems to have found his calling in coaching.
Here's Austin Kafentzis' senior highlight film, which consists of 15 minutes of hoping he'll be the starting QB next year
What once appeared promising for Madison native and former Oklahoma co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach Jay Norvell to return to his home state to coach the Wisconsin Badgers is no more.
According to FootballScoop.com, Norvell will join Charlie Strong's staff in Austin as the Longhorns' new wide receivers' coach.
It was widely reported that Norvell, who coached at Wisconsin from 1989-94 and was the Sooners' co-offensive coordinator since 2010, would come back for a second stint or at the very least was the leading candidate to take over for Chris Beatty, who now is at Virginia.
Who will Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst hire? Time will tell, but for now, Badgers fans will have to wait a little longer to find out.
Former All-American Wisconsin kicker Taylor Mehlhaff is expected to return to the Badgers as an assistant of some sort under Paul Chryst, Jeff Potrykus of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Thursday. Dave Heller of Fox Sports Wisconsin also added some confirmation on Friday. Mehlhaff's exact title has yet to be determined, though it seems like to be in some sort of graduate assistant role.
Mehlhaff, 29, was a special teams graduate assistant in 2013-14 under Chryst at Pitt. He was also a special teams quality control assistant at Tenessee in 2012.
As a kicker at UW, he was an All-American as a senior in 2007 and tied for third in school history with 50 field goals. He was also third in field goal percentage (76.9 percent, 50-of-65).
Not a huge surprise. Was recruited by Beatty and he's from VA.
In a press conference early Wednesday morning, head coach Paul Chryst officially announced five new members of his coaching staff. Thomas Brown will be staying on board (*phew*) to coach the running backs, Chris Haering (formerly of Pitt) will be the new special teams coach, Inoke Breckterfield (also formerly of Pitt) will coach the defensive line, Mickey Turner (surprisingly also formerly of Pitt AND a former UW tight end) will be coaching the tight ends and Ross Kolodziej (same path as Turner) will be the new strength and conditioning coach. There was no mention of Ben Strickland at the press conference, so far now his situation is still up in the air.