Wisconsins top recruiting needs, and wheres the Tanner Mordecai respect? Badgers mailbag

Publish date: 2024-07-16

Recruiting has dominated the June news cycle for Wisconsin’s football program, with key additions alongside some defections. The Badgers mailbag is back to break down where things stand and more.

Topics include how Wisconsin is doing at two positions of need in the 2024 class, how the volume of scholarship offers has changed with a new staff, coaches who have impressed on the recruiting trail, why national pundits aren’t higher on quarterback Tanner Mordecai and how quickly Phil Longo can create results with a new offense.

Do you think the Badgers have addressed the tailback position for 2024/2025 yet? What prospective players are they recruiting for the run game? — Charles M.

What’s up with DL recruiting? We hear some great things about coach (Greg) Scruggs, but as of now we aren’t trending favorably. Did they get in too late with these guys? Looks like this week we could very likely lose two that visited and are behind PSU with Umeh. — Jim W.

I’m putting these two questions together because running back and defensive line are the two positions that Luke Fickell told me last week were the most important to help Wisconsin close out the 2024 recruiting class. The Badgers appear to be in better position with their running back recruiting at this stage, but there are still a couple of big names out there.

Wisconsin added a commitment from three-star running back Gideon Ituka on June 17. Given that the Badgers are set to lose Chez Mellusi and likely Braelon Allen after next season, they need at least one more running back in the class. That’s where four-star prospects Darrion Dupree and Dilin Jones come in. Dupree visited Wisconsin in January for junior day and has been at the top of the Badgers’ running back board. Now that he has wrapped up his official visits, it’s time for him to make a decision. Wisconsin still appears to be in good shape with Dupree.

Jones is another intriguing prospect, and Wisconsin clearly made an impression when he took his official visit. Maryland and Florida State also are in the mix for him. It remains to be seen how many running backs the Badgers end up with for 2024. Landing either Dupree or Jones would really help to elevate Fickell’s first full recruiting class. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Wisconsin could land both players, though it is rare to take three scholarship running backs in one recruiting class.

Defensive line, meanwhile, feels like more of a question mark. Wisconsin does have a commitment from three-star Hank Weber. But things are a bit murky after that. Wisconsin needs more up front with Isaiah Mullens, Gio Paez, Rodas Johnson and Isaac Townsend all seniors next season.

Dominic Nichols committed to Michigan on Sunday, and Joe Barna committed to Illinois on Tuesday. Both of those players took official visits to Wisconsin. Benedict Umeh is trending toward Stanford. Dominic Kirks is set to announce his commitment Friday and has a top five of Wisconsin, Washington, Pitt, Kentucky and Nebraska. Liam Andrews took officials to Penn State, Wisconsin and South Carolina.

Fickell acknowledged that defensive line was a position Wisconsin had to “ride the roller coaster with” as coaches waited for all these visits and eventual decisions to play out. Defensive line coach Greg Scruggs comes off as personable, funny and certainly knowledgeable about coaching the position. He did an excellent job of bringing Jamel Howard back into the fray to land a commitment in the 2023 class. But more work needs to be done in 2024 and beyond as Wisconsin searches for playmakers up front. Going national for prospects can come with a high reward but also a greater chance that player will pick another school. And if Wisconsin doesn’t land any of the other defensive linemen who took official visits, it would have to be considered a disappointment.

In previous seasons, Wisconsin seemed pretty selective with its offers to recruits. Always toward the bottom of the Big Ten in terms of number of offers. Has this changed with the new leadership? Has there been a significant change in number of offers versus recent years? — David F.

Fickell cautioned that trying to track offers is a difficult challenge for those outside the program because a prospect who posts on social media that he has an offer either may not actually have one or may not possess a committable offer. So take the following numbers with a grain of salt. Based on the offer lists for schools according to 247Sports, it certainly appears as though the new staff is casting a wider net with offers to high school players.

Wisconsin’s 213 offers to prospects in the 2024 class as of midweek ranked seventh among Big Ten teams. That’s a larger number than when Wisconsin offered 137 players in the 2023 class, which ranked 12th in the conference, ahead of only Northwestern (65) and Iowa (116). Wisconsin last offered more than 200 players in a class in 2018.

However, it’s also important to note that some of the offers extended in the 2024 class came from Wisconsin’s previous coaching staff, so we don’t have a full picture of exactly how the new staff will operate. For example, seven of the 17 offers to Illinois prospects, nine of the 14 offers to Ohio prospects and four of the eight offers to Michigan prospects came from the new staff.

What does seem clear is Wisconsin’s willingness to recruit in Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio and Maryland, among other states. Wisconsin has offered 30 prospects in Florida, with 27 of the offers coming from the new staff, which represents the highest number of offers in that state for the Badgers since 2018. Wisconsin’s 16 offers to Pennsylvania prospects are the highest for Wisconsin in the internet recruiting rankings era. That obviously has paid dividends with commitments from three players from the state so far, with four-star Philadelphia cornerback Omillio Agard set to announce his decision Saturday from a group that includes Wisconsin and Clemson.

Ohio is understandably a fertile recruiting ground given the talent level and the connections Fickell and his staff have there. Wisconsin had four Maryland natives on campus for official visits in June. Wisconsin has offered 16 players from Texas. The last time the Badgers offered more Texas prospects was 2016.

Colin Hitschler has emerged as a particularly adept recruiter. Anyone else you’ve been hearing about? — Jay B.

It’s still early as we learn the strengths of Wisconsin’s entire coaching staff as recruiters. But safeties coach Colin Hitschler, offensive line coach Jack Bicknell Jr. and offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Phil Longo definitely come to mind. Hitschler’s connections in Pennsylvania and on the East Coast have led to great success in the 2024 class. He is listed as the primary recruiter on Wisconsin’s three Pennsylvania commits so far: offensive linemen Kevin Heywood and Ryan Cory, as well as safety Kahmir Prescott. Hitschler also helped to recruit safety Raphael Dunn, who plays in Lawrenceville, N.J. He’s the lead recruiter on Agard as well.

Bicknell helped gain commitments from offensive linemen Colin Cubberly (Lagrangeville, N.Y.) and Derek Jensen (Hartland, Wis.) while serving as the secondary recruiter on Heywood. And Longo has been on fire with his ability to recruit quarterbacks — specifically in Texas. He helped bring transfers Tanner Mordecai, Braedyn Locke and Nick Evers to Wisconsin. He’s also the reason Wisconsin has commitments in the 2024 class from Mabrey Mettauer and in the 2025 class from Landyn Locke, who is Braedyn’s younger brother.

Mettauer, a four-star prospect, was recruited by Wisconsin’s previous staff. But he told me that after he watched Wisconsin lose 17-14 to Washington State last season, he wasn’t excited about playing for the Badgers in their offense. That all changed after Longo arrived and sold Mettauer on playing in the Air Raid offense. We’ll see how the quarterback recruiting pans out, but there’s no doubt Longo has helped to bring tremendous excitement to the program.

Why are the prognosticators not very high on Tanner Mordecai? His track record is solid. Yet unproven QBs from Penn State and Ohio State are being ranked ahead of him all over the place. — Doug M.

This one is a pretty interesting offseason topic because Mordecai hasn’t seemed to generate the buzz nationally that matches his on-field accomplishments. He is a two-time Davey O’Brien Award semifinalist for best quarterback in the nation and is coming off two seasons at SMU in which he threw for 7,152 yards and 72 touchdowns.

Yet, to your point, he is considered in various national rankings to be the fifth- or sixth-best quarterback in the Big Ten, generally behind Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy, Maryland’s Taulia Tagovailoa, Ohio State’s Kyle McCord, Penn State’s Drew Allar and sometimes behind Iowa’s Cade McNamara. McCord has thrown 58 passes with one career start. Allar threw 60 passes as a true freshman last season and has yet to start. Other Big Ten transfer quarterbacks to have garnered attention include Purdue’s Hudson Card, Nebraska’s Jeff Sims and Illinois’ Luke Altmyer.

Tom Fornelli of CBSSports.com wrote this: “If you were to ask me to rank the Big Ten’s incoming transfer QBs, there’s a good chance I’d rank Tanner Mordecai behind every one of them. That said, none will have the impact of Mordecai because of what his transfer represents.”

Mordecai is a pretty low-key guy whose personality doesn’t lend itself to making major headlines. There may also be some questions as to how his work at SMU translates to success in the Big Ten while playing in an entirely new offense at Wisconsin. His performance in the open spring scrimmage, which was televised, may add to some potential skepticism given that he threw four interceptions, including three on his first three possessions.

I’ll reiterate that Mordecai’s scrimmage performance was his worst of the spring and that I expect him to produce the best season by a Wisconsin quarterback since Russell Wilson in 2011. That doesn’t mean he’ll throw 33 touchdowns with four interceptions and break the school record for career completion percentage (.728) like Wilson did. But it does mean Mordecai will be a difference-maker as opposed to a game manager (or a game-coster), as we’ve seen from some previous Badgers quarterbacks.

He has the personnel around him, with Allen and Mellusi at running back and the deepest wide receiver group the Badgers have had. If the offensive line can adapt to a new scheme and protect Mordecai, he should have time to pick apart defenses. That ought to give Wisconsin a chance to succeed in every game.

The spring game was pretty rough to watch and a bit of a reality check that the transition between offenses is a dramatic one. Do you see (coaches believe) it will take a few years to get the right players in to make this offense work or do you think they feel it can run on all cylinders this year after fall camp? — Mark V.

I can tell you that coaches absolutely believe the Air Raid offense will work at Wisconsin in Year 1. Longo was asked in January how long it generally takes for new players to get comfortable in his offense. Here was his response:

“When we went to Sam Houston State, they were in the triple-option with Willie Fritz,” Longo said. “And that offense had taken them to the final four and the national championship game. So they had a lot of confidence and a lot of success in that system. I don’t know that you could be any different than what we’re doing. But we went 12-4, finished in the final four and led our conference offensively and won the conference. And that was the very next year.”

Obviously, having success at Sam Houston and accomplishing something similar right away at Wisconsin are two different animals. But Longo’s last stop, North Carolina, showed immediate improvement. In 2018, the year before Longo arrived, UNC ranked 31st nationally in total offense (442.1 yards per game) and 77th in scoring offense (27.4 points per game). In 2019, UNC ranked 12th in total offense (474 yards per game) and 30th in scoring offense (33.1 points per game).

Wisconsin’s offense is undergoing significant change and coming off a season in which it ranked 91st nationally in total offense (363.6 yards per game) and 77th in scoring offense (26.3 points). I do wonder how well the offensive line will be able to hold up over the course of a full game given the high tempo. But the Badgers also have the ability to go eight-deep on the line to help with fatigue. With Mordecai at quarterback, one of the best running back tandems in the country and the most talented group of wide receivers I can remember at Wisconsin, the pieces are there to produce immediate results.

(Photo: Mark Hoffman / USA Today)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57k29rcG9hanxzfJFsZmluX2eGcMPIrJqopqOeu26yzqirm5mcoXqzscKrrKKsmaO0brjUpJxmnpmYuKa4y2akmqGcl66oew%3D%3D

MoxVlog

Wisconsins top recruiting needs, and wheres the Tanner Mordecai respect? Badgers mailbag