Luke Fickell landed Brock Barrows, but another coach may have been the biggest reason

Luke Fickell is having quite the offseason. He landed a great transfer portal class, then put together a top-25 recruiting class, is somehow earning favor back with fans after only winning four games last season, and at Big Ten Media Days, he said a lot of the right things. The cherry on top may be that he landed 2028 3-star offensive lineman Brock Barrows. This is the second commitment for a very young class.

However, Fickell doesn't get as much credit as you'd think. It turns out that Barrows is eager to be coached by Eric Mateos. The new Wisconsin offensive line coach has been recruiting Barrows for a couple of seasons. Mateos was at Arkansas last year and was working on making the young offensive lineman a Razorback. When Mateos switched to the Badgers, Barrows' interest also did.

According to Evan Flood, Barrows said about his commitment to Wisconsin, "When I felt it in my heart was when I first met Coach Mateos back at Arkansas. I always had this feeling I was going to play for him." Fickell is having an incredible offseason, but some of the success goes straight back to his assistants, just the way Coach Fickell would want it.

Wisconsin lands 3-star IOL Brock Barrows as the second recruit of the 2028 class

Related: Luke Fickell's Wisconsin QB comments could lead to a domino effect to save his job

On3.com is the first recruiting service to rank Barrows as a 3-star. The other two have yet to evaluate and put him into the ranking system. Right now, 24/7 lists Barrows as having seven offers but is not yet starred. Those seven offers are Wisconsin, Arkansas, Iowa State, Minnesota, Purdue, Tennessee, and Northwestern. He also has been generating interest from his home state school, Missouri.

On3 lists the interior offensive lineman as the No. 9 player in the state of Missouri and a top-40 player on the offensive line in 2028. It's so early to know how he will develop, as he just finished his sophomore year of high school. He hasn't even played his junior season, and he is currently listed at 6'3 and 275 pounds. There's room for him to get even bigger and taller as he develops through high school.

Barrows joins 4-star Cale Britt as the only other commit in the 2028 class. As the recruiting class is still so young and players have only recently been able to commit, two is ahead of the curve. In fact, 24/7, even without rating Barrows, has the 2028 Wisconsin recruiting class as No. 14 in the country.

Luke Fickell is on fire and adding Barrows to his 2028 class, thanks to Mateos, is a big deal on a day that already featured a bunch of big deals.

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