Wisconsin Football: Reggie Pearson enters the transfer portal

Just two years ago, the Wisconsin football team had Eric Burrell, Reggie Pearson, and Scott Nelson as safeties in their secondary. They were young and the future at the position looked bright. Now, Scott Nelson is all that’s left. Burrell is headed to the NFL and now sophomore safety Reggie Pearson has entered the transfer portal.

Pearson missed the entire 2020 season. Details weren’t released, but it was announced that he would miss the season due to a medical condition and the UW training staff wouldn’t clear him for the season. JSOnline’s Jeff Potrykus went into it a little bit last September.

"Chryst revealed Pearson is dealing with a medical condition discovered in the off-season. He remains in school but has not been cleared to practice or play.“So for this year (he) wasn’t cleared to play,” Chryst said. “Reggie is in school and (we) still want him around.”"

I think most Badger fans expected Reggie Pearson to be back at the start of the 2021 season and I think Pearson was expecting to be back with Wisconsin as well.

Apparently, Wisconsin didn’t feel the same way. In a tweet from Reggie Pearson, he explained that Wisconsin still wouldn’t clear him, despite getting clearance from secondary opinions. From Pearson’s standpoint, there isn’t a whole lot else to do but transfer.

As a fan of the Badgers, this really sucks because I think Pearson could have been really good for the Badgers, but at the same time, you can’t fault either side. If the Badgers medical staff didn’t think he was healthy enough to play, you can’t put a kid in a position to get hurt and possibly change his life forever.

On Reggie’s side, if he feels he can play and has sought out multiple medical opinions and those all tell you that you can play, why would you stay somewhere that you can’t play?

In 2018, Pearson played in 13 games tallying 60 total tackles, 3.5 for a loss, and four forced fumbles.

We will see where Pearson will end up. As a Badger fan, you hope it’s somewhere outside of the Big Ten, but I would still love to see him go somewhere and succeed and hopefully play on Sundays.

Whatever happens, Reggie Pearson should always have the respect of Wisconsin football fans.