Badger Football Recruiting Rankings
Yesterday was National Signing Day for College Football Recruiting so now all the rankings are out for how a team did, or did not, perform. First let me throw out my disclaimer that a lot of these recruiting services are a joke with their rankings. For years under Charlie Weiss, Notre Dame was in the top five but we could all see the talent on the field in no way compared to the SEC or the top teams in the Big 10. But Notre Dame sells so if a recruit commits to the Irish he is almost guaranteed to be at least a star higher in his grade. The Badgers are not one of the teams that gets this benefit which is fine we me. It allows the team to maintain the lunch-pail attitude that helped win the Big 10 this season. I should also note that this in not a relatively large recruiting cycle for Wisconsin as they only brought in 20 recruits, the average class in 25.
Onto the rankings.
ESPN – 8th in Big 10
According to “The Mothership” as Dan Patrick puts it, the Badgers were 8th in the conference behind Michigan, Iowa, Penn State, Illinois, Michigan State, Nebraska and Ohio State. It was not stated what the Badgers were ranked nationally, at least not on anything I could find, but they were definitely not in the top 25 as only two Big 10 teams were.
ESPN had this specifically to say about the Badgers class.
"Top prospect: WR A.J. Jordan(Trotwood, Ohio/Trotwood-Madison), one of the Midwest’s better receivers, is a very good intermediate-to-deep pass catcher and difficult jump-ball matchup.Name to remember: Terrance Floyd(Lantana, Fla./Santaluces Community), a likely college corner, is an extremely athletic sleeper overlooked in our eyes out of the fertile state of Florida.Breakdown: The Badgers had one of the top teams in 2010 with a roster full of system-fitting players without a lot of national regard coming out of high school. This balanced class is solid with three-star quality and met a lot of needs. They upgraded their receiving corps with Jordan and retained the majority of the state’s best players including athlete Melvin Gordon(Kenosha, Wis./Mary D. Bradford), who has a promising blend of size and speed. Wisconsin also loaded up at tight end and signed a solid group of front seven prospects on defense, highlighted by talented pass rusher Jesse Hayes(Cincinnati, Ohio/Moeller)."
Let me throw in my quick tidbit. I saw Melvin Gordan in person this season playing at SPASH, Stevens Point, and was blown away. At the time Kenosha Bradford and SPASH were ranked one and two in division one. Gordan was simply amazing running the ball, every touch felt like it was going to turn into a touchdown and almost did. The knock on him will be the lack of competition faced in the state which I feel is an excuse that is getting stale. Gordan played very near Whitewater who has won several division three football titles by compiling their entire squad from players in the nearby area. Sure this is not SEC talent, but the talent in Southeastern Wisconsin is a little under-rated.
Rivals – 38th Nationally, 7th in Big 10
I like the Rivals site much better than ESPN when looking at these rankings, easier to navigate and actually view the recruits without as much digging. Rivals has more actual raw data, ESPN cannot help but give their angle on everything.
According to Rivals 19 of the 20 recruits were 3 stars or higher. The Badgers are not going to get a lot of the ESPN 150 or elite five star recruits, but they do not need to. A very strong program can be built off of the majority of classes being comprised of three star recruits with some four star’s thrown in and that is exactly what Wisconsin has. Ohio State won a National Title with a roster of three and four star players. If the Badgers can ever get to the point where they can top these classes off with one or two five star players it would be nice, but not necessary.