Wisconsin Football: Badgers strike on the recruiting trail

Wisconsin Football extended a couple of new scholarship offers earlier this week in the class of 2019 and 2020

It may be the first week of arguably the most anticipated season in Wisconsin Football history, but that does not mean Paul Chryst and company are going to neglect things on the recruiting front.

The Badgers made new offers to two prospects, one in both the 2019 and 2020 classes.

First up was 2019 defensive end Taurean Carter (Mansfield, Texas), who announced his Wisconsin offer via Twitter on Sunday.

Wisconsin joins a long list of 17 other programs who have offered the 6’3, 260 lbs high 3-star prospect.

We will see if the Badgers can become a player for Carter, who had recently cut his list down to four schools: Arkansas, Michigan State, Texas, and Texas Tech. However, as we saw with Isaiah Gibson, these cut lists can easily change if new offers roll in. You have to believe that Wisconsin’s offer to Carter is an indication in their confidence that the interest would be reciprocated.

At the moment the Badgers have defensive line commitments from Gio Paez (Cornelius, NC) and Keeanu Benton (Janesville, WI), but are looking to add at least one more. They remain in the thick of things for both Gibson and Rodas Johnson (Columbus, OH).

On Monday, Wisconsin dipped into the 2020 class and offered tight end Lukas Ungar (Morristown, NJ).

Ungar is a 4-star prospect and ranks as the No.5 tight end nationally according to 247Sports. In addition to Wisconsin, he currently holds offers from Michigan, Stanford, Maryland, North Carolina, Rutgers, Syracuse, and West Virginia. That list is a bit small since it is so early in the 2020 recruiting cycle, but Ungar will certainly see many more offers come his way soon. There are some blue blood programs sniffing around, as schools such as Notre Dame, Penn State, and Ohio State have expressed interest.

Ungar’s level of interest in Wisconsin remains to be seen, but the Badgers will have their hands full trying to beat some of those other offers. In particular, Stanford may pose the biggest hurdle, as there is a case to be made that it has been “Tight End U” in recent years. For what it’s worth, the Stanford offer is Ungar’s pinned tweet on his Twitter profile.

Ungar is now the third tight end the Badgers have offered in the 2020 class, joining Clay Caudill (Mansfield, OH) and Michael Mayer (Alexandria, KY), who has since committed to Notre Dame.

Wisconsin’s only commitment in the class of 2020 at this time is in-state 4-star offensive tackle Jack Nelson out of Stoughton.