Former Badgers quarterback Russell Wilson is the next subject of Badger of Honor’s new weekly series. Throwback Thursday will pay tribute to a significant Badger from the past.
Russell Wilson is the next subject of the Throwback Thursday series. Although he was only in Madison for a year, he played his way into Badger lore. One of many reasons Wilson is so memorable is because he wasn’t a traditional Wisconsin football quarterback.
In his lone season with Wisconsin, he led the Badgers to an 11-3 record and a Big Ten Championship.
He had plenty of help from the three-headed monster in the backfield that included Montee Ball, James White, and Melvin Gordon. He also had Nick Toon and Jared Abbrederis catching passes on the outside.
Wilson had a ton of weapons, but that doesn’t take away from how special his only season in Madison really was. He holds UW records for career completion percentage (72.8%), single-season passing touchdowns (33), and total offense in a single season (3,513 yards).
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Before Wisconsin
Coming out of Richmond, Virginia, Wilson was not a highly-touted recruit. Wilson was a three-star recruit and ranked 1,102 nationally according to 247Sports composite. He only had a few offers and ended up going to North Carolina State.
Sanjay Kirpalani from Bleacher Report has a great article on Wilson’s recruitment out of high school and his eventual path to Wisconsin.
During his three years at NC State, Wilson completed 58% of his passes for 8,545 yards, 76 touchdowns, and 26 interceptions.
He was then drafted by the Colorado Rockies with the 140th overall pick of the 2010 MLB Draft. Wilson expressed interest in attending spring training with the team. Then head coach, Tom O’Brien, wasn’t too hot on the idea. Eventually, it led to Wilson transferring from NC State.
Understandably, Wilson wanted to transfer to a contending team. Wisconsin was, by all means, a contender. They had an excellent defense and weapons galore on offense but were missing a playmaker at quarterback. Wilson saw this opportunity and chose Wisconsin over Auburn. The rest is history.
2011 Wisconsin Football
Wilson didn’t take long to leave a positive impression on Badger fans. In his first game, he torched UNLV for 255 yards and two touchdowns on just 13 attempts and also added 62 yards and a touchdown on the ground.
This trend of dominance continued throughout most of the season. Wilson racked up 3,175 passing yards, 33 touchdowns, and only four interceptions. On top of that, he added 338 rushing yards and six touchdowns. To make this season even more impressive, he had three catches for 56 yards and a touchdown.
Even after this past season where the Badgers went 13-1, I would argue that the 2011 season lead by Wilson is the most successful and exciting in a long time. It took two hail mary’s from Michigan State and Ohio State in back-to-back weeks to beat this team.
He then led Wisconsin to the Big Ten Championship game; a rematch against Michigan State. Wisconsin won the shootout thanks in part to Wilson’s late-game heroics.
Wisconsin earned a bid to the Rose Bowl to play the high-powered Oregon offense. Unfortunately, Wisconsin couldn’t quite pull out a win in Pasadena. Wilson would then go on to be drafted in the third round by the Seattle Seahawks.
I’m sure any Badger fan who saw Wilson first-hand wasn’t surprised when he led them to two super bowls and won one. He is the only former Wisconsin quarterback to start and win a super bowl in the NFL.
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Though he was only at Wisconsin for one year, he will always be remembered as one of the Badger greats.