The Badgers have found their new Director of Player Personnel. After losing former general manager and director of player personnel Max Steinecker to USC, Wisconsin has tabbed North Texas' director of player personnel Ethan Russo to fill the void.
Badger football heads in new direction with a completely rebuilt recruiting department
According to Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports and 247 Sports, the Badgers will name Russo as their next director of player personnel, who will work alongside newly appointed GM Marcus Sedberry.
Losing Steinecker was a huge loss for Wisconsin, as the recruiting ace has helped to put together back-to-back Top 25 classes in 2024 and 2025. Luke Fickell and company will now hand over the keys to Russo, who spent the last two seasons at North Texas. Before then, he held roles with UNLV, Utah and Rice in their recruiting departments.
With Utah, he helped orchestrate two Top 50 classes on their way to a PAC-12 Championship in 2021. The Mean Green had the 89th and 96th ranked classes in 2024 and 2025 respectively. Russo has also held intern positions with the NFL's Indianapolis Colts and Cleveland Browns.
The Badgers have completely rebuilt their recruiting department with the hires of Sedberry and now Russo, as they'll look to help achieve a third straight top 25 class with the 2026 group.