Wisconsin football released its roster and there is no sign of starting safety, Reggie Pearson.
Wisconsin football released its roster on the UW Badgers website, and there was one noticeable player missing: redshirt sophomore Reggie Pearson. There was word going around that at least one Wisconsin football player decided to op-put of the 2020 season, but it seems hard to believe it would be Pearson.
There are some cryptic tweets from Reggie and his father, that go back as September 9th, which are making some fans nervous that there may be something going on behind the scenes that fans don’t know about.
Pearson’s father tweeted this out:
No matter what son @reggiepearson21 I got your back. We’ll be fine. 💯 pic.twitter.com/rX9n9VUpPy
— Coach Pearson (@ReggiePearson4) September 9, 2020
And Reggie responded with this:
We finna go to the top pop no biggie ❤️ https://t.co/JZE48K8Cch
— Reggie (@reggiepearson21) September 9, 2020
Fans haven’t heard anything about what is going on, but Reggie’s father took to Twitter this morning to explain things will soon be addressed.
Things will be addressed soon. #OnWisconsin
— Coach Pearson (@ReggiePearson4) September 23, 2020
I am going to grab what positivity I can out of these tweets. The fact that they are posting pictures of him in his Badger uniform and hashtagging #OnWisconsin makes it seem like there is still love there and Pearson could be coming back. Or, maybe I’m grasping at straws.
But on the other side, it is a pretty interesting sign that he isn’t even on the roster at the start of the season. If there was something going on where he would still play for the Badgers this fall, I would assume they would keep him on the roster. Him not being on the roster at all is kind of an ominous sign that he may not be playing with Wisconsin this fall.
If that’s the case, Wisconsin would be missing one of their best defensive players. He and Eric Burrell made one of the top safety duos in the Big Ten and would negatively affect the team. He is a physical presence on the back half of the defense. Last season, Pearson played in all 13 games and had 60 total tackles, 3.5 for a loss, 4 passes defended, and two forced fumbles. Losing Pearson would be a big blow to the Wisconsin football defense.
If they have to go without Pearson, they Badgers do have Scott Nelson returning after missing most of last year with a season-ending injury. They also have Collin Wilder, who transferred from Houston a couple of seasons ago, so at least there is some nice depth at the position. This might also afford redshirt freshman Titus Toler to step up and earn some playing time as well.
It’s an odd situation, so stay tuned to see what will end up happening.