Wisconsin Football 2016 Outlook: Wide Receivers

A look at the Wisconsin football team’s 2016 wide receiver outlook

Heading into the 2016 college football season, the Wisconsin football team will need to replace an impact player at the wide receiver position, but the team has several players who look primed for a successful 2016 campaign.

More badgers: 2016 Position Outlook: Quarterbacks

The Badgers will be tasked with replacing four senior receivers. Two of those players, Jordan Fredrick and A.J. Jordan, saw little action on offense. Jordan played mainly special teams and Fredrick had just seven receptions on the year.

The third, Tanner McEvoy, split time on defense at safety and offense at wide receiver, and was used in multiple ways including as a wildcat quarterback. He caught 10 passes for 109 yards and ran the ball 17 times for 139 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

The fourth player Wisconsin will need to replace had one of the best seasons a Wisconsin receiver has ever had in Madison, and leaves as a top-10 receiver in school history.

Wisconsin Badgers

Alex Erickson had a monster year in 2016 despite scoring just three touchdowns. He totaled 978 yards on 77 catches, averaging 12.7 yards per catch and 75.23 yards per game. Those 978 yards were good enough for the sixth-best single-season reception yardage total in school history. He finished his Wisconsin career with 1,877 total reception yards, edging the legendary Pat Richter for 10th on the Badgers all-time career yardage list.

Putting that into context, it won’t be easy for the Badgers to replace one of the best receivers in school history.

The Badgers do, however, have a guy on the team who looks ready to slide right into the No. 1 receiver role: Robert Wheelwright.

Playing through injuries in 2015, Wheelwright caught 32 passes for 462 yards in nine games for the Badgers. His reception and yardage totals were second and the team, and he tied tight end Austin Traylor for the team lead with four touchdown catches.

He also proved multiple times during the season that he’s capable of going up and getting the ball, making circus catches, and finding the endzone.

While Wheelwright, who will be a senior next season, seems to be a sure-bet candidate to step into Wisconsin’s No. 1 receiver role, the spots behind him are largely up for grabs.

The most likely receiver to see a bump in playing time next fall is junior-to-be Jazz Peavy, who was fifth on the team with 20 catches for 268 yards in 2015. He showed flashes of big play ability, and scored the touchdown that wasn’t a touchdown at the end of the Northwestern game.

Peavy is also the only other Wisconsin football receiver coming back this season who saw significant playing time last season. Behind him, Reggie Love will return as a senior after catching 4 passes in 2015. George Rushing, the only other Badgers receiver to record a reception in 2015, had just one grab for 11 yards. He will be a junior in 2015.

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Other Badgers returning this fall will be juniors Ricky Finco and Krenwick Sanders, redshirt sophomore Peter Roy, and redshirt freshmen Henry Houden and Andrew James.

The Badgers will also add a few names to the mix in the recruiting class of 2016, which includes three-star wide receiver prospects Quintez Cephus, Kendric Pryor as well as one of the Badgers most heralded recruits, four-star athlete A.J. Taylor, who is expected to play wide receiver at Wisconsin.

The Badgers certainly have a lot of questions to answer at the wide receiver position, which doesn’t feel all that unfamiliar. Before Alex Erickson broke out for the badgers two years ago, many of those same questions were being asked. This year, the promise of Wheelwright is a nice security blanket while we await the unfolding of the rest of the depth chart.

Next: Top 50 Players in Wisconsin Football history

Stay tuned to Badger of Honor for more position-by-position breakdowns of the Wisconsin football team’s 2016 outlook.