Badger of Honor
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Wisconsin Football: Badgers primed for another successful year despite recruiting flaws

By Trevor Jossart

Nov 19, 2016; West Lafayette, IN, USA; Wisconsin Badgers wide receiver Jazz Peavy (11) celebrates his touchdown with receiver George Rushing (17) in the second half of the game against the Purdue Boilermakers at Ross Ade Stadium. The Wisconsin Badgers beat the Purdue Boilermakers 49-20. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 19, 2016; West Lafayette, IN, USA; Wisconsin Badgers wide receiver Jazz Peavy (11) celebrates his touchdown with receiver George Rushing (17) in the second half of the game against the Purdue Boilermakers at Ross Ade Stadium. The Wisconsin Badgers beat the Purdue Boilermakers 49-20. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports /
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Despite failing to see themselves at the top of recruiting rankings, the Wisconsin Badgers remain relevant every year in college football

Sports are simple. Those who have the best roster and most talented players will often times be the most successful teams. If a team is rated No. 1 in recruiting, it is safe to assume that team will have a good shot at winning the national championship. This type of logic seems foolproof in the fact that it is simple and easy to understand. For the Wisconsin Badgers, however, ratings mean nothing.

SB Nation recently release their college football projections for the 2017 season. Ranking every Division I team from No. 1 all the way to No. 130, the site listed their best team from top-to-bottom. Obviously, the season has not started, so the easiest metric to look at when ranking teams who have not played a game yet is understandably recruiting and overall talent on the roster.

Wisconsin is fresh off an 11-3 record last season, winning the Cotton Bowl as well as the Big Ten West. All three of the Badgers’ losses came by seven points and were all to teams ranked in the top seven in the country. Wisconsin started the year unranked, and at one point climbed all the way up to No. 6 in the College Football Playoff rankings.

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This year, the experts are not making the same mistake they made last year. Almost all, if not every, pre-season posts and projections have the Badgers ranked somewhere, usually falling between the No. 11-15 range.

SB Nation is no different. They have the Badgers ranked No. 11, despite being the fourth rated Big Ten team. Ohio State (2), Penn State (8), and Michigan (10) are the three conference teams ahead of them. The rankings were based off three tools: Recruiting, returning production, and recent success.

Let’s start with recent success.

For purposes of comparisons, let’s use the 10 teams in front of the Badgers in this specific ranking system.

  1. Alabama
  2. Ohio State
  3. Florida State
  4. LSU
  5. Oklahoma
  6. Clemson
  7. USC
  8. Penn State
  9. Auburn
  10. Michigan

Using the numbers from the post, which can be seen here, the Badgers have had more success in the last five years than half of the teams ranked in the top ten.

Moving on to returning production, only two teams not in the listed top ten have a top ten rating in this category. Both Florida and Washington are set to return huge chunks of production, but because their five-year recent history isn’t strong, they are sitting on the outside of the top ten looking in.

Recruiting is the real factor to look at in this instance. Here is the top ten list again, this time with their recruiting rank for this season in parenthesis.

  1. Alabama (1)
  2. Ohio State (2)
  3. Florida State (3)
  4. LSU (5)
  5. Oklahoma (11)
  6. Clemson (13)
  7. USC (7)
  8. Penn State (18)
  9. Auburn (9)
  10. Michigan (4)

Have you had a chance to look at Wisconsin’s? 36.

Wisconsin is literally sitting there on this post, and every other one you may have seen this far with a 36 recruiting impact rating. There is no other team until all the way down at No. 22- Oklahoma State- that has a rating worse than the Badgers in this category.

247 Sports has Wisconsin ranked 39. To put that in perspective, Rutgers- who finished the Big Ten in last place a year in seemingly every season they have been in the conference- is ranked 43rd in recruiting. Their ranking on SB Nation’s 130 list? 92.

Something is happening in Madison and something is going to happen soon. The Badgers’ recruits are simply getting better every year, but it is not like the program has been anything short of extraordinary in past years.

From one fan to another, ignore the rankings you may see at the beginning of the college football season. The Badgers will prove to you how little they truly mean.