Duck Dive: Wisconsin Football 2024 Preview

Special thanks to Rohan Chakravarthi of Bucky’s 5th Quarter for joining me on the Quack 12 Podcast to discuss Wisconsin’s roster. LISTEN HERE

Wisconsin surprised much of the college football world by firing longtime head coach Paul Chryst five weeks into the 2022 season, letting defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard finish the season as interim head coach, and in November announcing the hire of head coach Fickell from Cincinnati. For the 2023 season, Fickell brought over much of his staff including DC Tressel (nephew of Ohio State legend Jim Tressel and previously a longtime Michigan State assistant) and several position coaches, but made notable new hires who hadn’t been at Wisconsin or Cincinnati for offensive coordinator, running backs, and both offensive and defensive lines – positions at which the Badgers had strong identities.

Fickell’s record at Cincinnati, 57-18 over six years including a total talent transformation and a modernized operation, seemed like just the right kind of shakeup for Wisconsin, and many of the behind-the-scenes elements in Madison look strong as I examine the foundations of the roster. But it’s also apparent that there have been some missteps in the first season as they stumbled through what should have been a pretty soft schedule in 2023 to the same 7-6 record as in 2022. With a significantly tougher slate in 2024, they’ll need to make some big strides in performance in just about every area to get back to the program’s peaks.

After Fickell led Cincinnati to a 13-1 season and the playoffs in 2021, his longtime offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock was hired away by LSU, and Fickell promoted the offensive assistant who’d been working with them since they’d arrived in 2017, Gino Guidugli, to OC for the 2022 season. When Fickell accepted the Wisconsin position in November of 2022, I expected that he’d make another run at Denbrock or bring Guidugli with him to Madison. Instead, Denbrock stayed put at LSU while Guidugli went to Notre Dame in 2023 as the QB coach (they’ll reunite for the 2024 season as Denbrock will be taking over as OC for the Irish), and Fickell hired OC Longo from North Carolina.

That surprised me for a number of reasons. For one thing, in my film study of the Tar Heels that year I was thoroughly unimpressed with Longo as a playcaller and thought he needed a generational talent and improviser at QB like 3rd-overall draft pick Drake Maye to bail him out. For another, I thought Longo’s modified Air Raid style of offense was a poor fit for the talent the new staff at Wisconsin was inheriting, with the strength of the skill players tilted towards the backs instead of the receivers while the tackles showed notable deficiencies in pass protection over their previous two years of grades.

Finally, during every season I’ve charted the Badgers, not just 2021 through the present as I have with every Big Ten team but in multiple Rose Bowl seasons, they wound up with almost identical per-play effectiveness rates in every category I track – above average efficiency in the run game, average yards per carry, below average passing offense in every way, and completely unexplosive even at their otherwise strong run game. What’s kept Wisconsin a powerful offense in their best years, and a dangerous opponent even in their off years, is that they’ve leant into their strength in efficiency running and just pounded it no matter what, with overall rush frequencies north of 60% every year and 1^st down rush frequency over 65%, sometimes as high as 72%.

And so the results in 2023 were fairly predictable – on a per-play basis, just about everything the Badgers did was just as effective or ineffective as always, but Longo had switched the team to about a 50/50 passing offense on 1^st down and 45/55 passing on all downs. So since they weren’t running as much, and running was — as always — the only thing they were any good at, the overall production fell off.

On the podcast, Rohan was quick to acknowledge the difficulties with the new offense’s first season, though he thought the old way of doing things in Madison had reached its ceiling and it was time for a change to start getting in a substantial talent upgrade. I certainly agree with that, and over the last two cycles under Fickell there’s been no team in the Big Ten that’s moved up more substantially in overall average roster talent in my database – as Rohan pointed out, they avoided the mass exodus of valuable talent that almost every other coaching change provokes, and in addition they’ve cycled out mid 3-stars while cycling in high 3-stars and low 4-stars, evenly distributed across positions. In terms of rapid, well managed roster growth this is one of the best jobs I’ve seen done in years.

By that token, Rohan thinks it’s too early to judge Longo’s hiring and the offensive scheme change a mistake, since the talent situation was hardly ideal in 2023. The QB room is probably the best example of that. Starter Tanner Mordecai missed three and a half games with a broken thumb and his backup, #18 QB Locke, was a real dropoff in accuracy. I also think that the route structure Mordecai was working with at his previous stops where he had substantially higher passer ratings (Rhett Lashlee’s at SMU and Lincoln Riley’s at Oklahoma), while sharing Air Raid origins with Longo’s, were much more suited for a longball offense and had NFL receivers who could stretch the field vertically, and Wisconsin’s short passing offense to inside receivers wasn’t really Mordecai’s strong suit.

Mordecai has run out of eligibility but Locke returns; Rohan said that he looked improved as a passer since the 2023 season during Spring practices. Another backup, mid 3-star redshirt freshman #17 QB LaCrue, also returns, but Rohan said he’s sitting out after undergoing surgery and not really part of the race. Myles Burkett and Nick Evers have transferred out without playing.

There are two additions to the room: low 4-star prep recruit #11 QB Mettauer who Rohan said should be third in line, and senior #10 QB Van Dyke who’s been Miami’s starter for most of the last three seasons and Rohan said pulled away from Locke at the end of camp and should secure the starting job.

Van Dyke has a big arm and an impressive 160.1 passer rating in his first year as starter in 2021, more than a full standard deviation above FBS median. It fell substantially to 133.3 in 2022 under Miami’s new staff for reasons I’m sure Oregon fans have all sorts of theories about, but recovered somewhat in 2023 to 145.6, just above median. As we discussed on the podcast, how Van Dyke performs as a passer is probably the single most determinative factor in Wisconsin’s offense for 2024, but it’s hard to pin him down to make a prediction – this will be his fourth offensive system and fourth QB coach in as many years, and there’s a lot of variance in his record to date, everything from playoff-caliber performance to benching.

We discussed QB running on the podcast and I promised Rohan I’d look further into the data here. Mordecai both fairly effectively escaped trouble when the pocket broke down on dropbacks and graded out very well at making correct RPO reads in Longo’s offense, with about 4.4 adjusted YPC on designed run plays. I haven’t charted Van Dyke at Miami but his raw rushing stats aren’t nearly as encouraging – he essentially has a zero rushing average on 100 carries. I pulled up the complete play-by-play records and found that 42 of those were on sacks (-5.88 average lost yards) and 58 were runs of some sort (+5.43 average gain). Without watching film I can’t differentiate scrambles from designed runs or pull out garbage time, but that’s still a decent indicator of athleticism – it backs up Rohan’s observation from practice that Van Dyke is a “good enough” athlete to present a credible threat to run and keep the defense honest on RPOs, though taking that many sacks probably indicates a step down in escapability.

Wisconsin loses their top running back, Braelon Allen, who was drafted in the 4^th round by the Jets. I thought he was the Badgers’ best player on the entire team, though Rohan seemed a bit less taken by him. There’s an extensive discussion on the podcast of the time Allen missed and how the rest of the room was used, summarized in this chart:

The three remaining backs who got carries last year all return in 2024: #34 RB Acker, #1 RB Mellusi, and #25 RB Yacamelli. It was evidently the staff’s belief that Mellusi was a 1A/1B with Allen as two peer backs (my charting of their respective per-play success rates and adjusted YPC numbers controlling for garbage time over the last three years does not support this), but Mellusi broke his leg in the fourth week and missed the rest of the season. Rohan said that Yacamelli was available all season but the staff didn’t realize what they had in him until Allen’s tempurary injury forced them to find another back, at which point Yacamelli played extensively for the rest of the year.

So while Acker has the second most carries all season and appears on paper to be the number-two back, their usage pattern indicates the staff considered him their third or fourth option. I don’t understand that, since Acker’s individual numbers from charting as a runner were better than anyone’s but Allen’s, and in the passing game (pass protection and adjusted yards per target out of the backfield) Acker’s grades were by far the best in the unit. I think this systematic devaluation of Acker was a real mistake.

There are four additions to the unit. Three are true freshman, although only mid 3-star #31 RB Ituka was on campus for Spring and I expect him to redshirt, while the bluechips Darrion Dupree and Dillin Jones who are expected to be big power backs don’t arrive in the Fall and we’ll have to see how they weigh in. The fourth is Oklahoma transfer #3 RB Walker, and both Rohan and I think he’ll get the starting job right away, since he’s a veteran with a great rushing average and a perfect build for this power RPO run scheme.

Walker also has shown great hands out of the backfield, though that was one of the big curiosities we discussed on the podcast – why there were so few passing targets for the backs last year. I think there are some opportunities to use the running backs more optimally than they were last year with some self-scouting here, but the lineup will likely be Walker and Mellusi with Acker and Yacamelli as backups as needed. I think that leaves some yards on the table but it shouldn’t be a bottleneck at all.

Passing targets to the tight ends fell by about a third from 2022 to 2023. They’d lost two of their three main pass-catching TEs at the end of that season, Clay Cundiff and Jack Eschenbach, and with the loss of the third, Hayden Rucci, at the end of 2023, I suspect TE targets are going to dip a little more in 2024.

The Badgers bring back #38 TE Ashcraft and #37 TE Nowakowski, who had 15 catches between them for pretty short yardage last year, plus #41 TE Seagreaves who was only used as a blocker. They’ve lost three more who I don’t believe played last year: Cole Dakovich, Cam Large, and Jack Pugh.

There are three additions: mid 3-star prep #89 TE Booker, low 4-star prep #85 TE Stec, and high 3-star true sophomore transfer #87 TE McGohan who played 8 games at LSU last year without recording any stats, apparently on special teams.

This looks like a room in transition. Other than Seagreaves, the blocker, and Nowakowski, the redshirt-senior walk-on, the four guys in the room are all 2023 or 2024 recruits, and with very different body sizes – Stec is huge at 260 lbs while McGohan was listed by LSU at 225 lbs. Rohan suggested both that this unit needs to do some development before we figure out how any of these guys will be used going forward, and it’s likely that to the extent we see these guys in 2024 it’ll be situationally – McGohan as a split-out Y-receiver, the bigger guys as blockers in short-yardage, etc. – rather than as permanent fixtures in a perpetual 12-personnel offense like with past Wisconsin offenses.

Wisconsin had a dozen scholarship wideouts, and nearly all of them saw the field at one point or another. Four have transferred out: Skyler Bell and Chimere Dike who were the second and third receivers (depending on how you look at it) to UConn and Florida, plus Keontez Lewis and Tommy McIntosh who were barely used at all.

The eight who return are top target by a wide margin #6 WR Pauling with 74 receptions, #9 WR Green who was the second or third receiver (again, depending), #86 WR Anthony and #4 WR CJ Williams who got about a touch per game each, then the remaining four — #27 WR Anderson, #84 WR Brooks, #5 WR Burroughs, and #12 WR Kekahuna — had just a handful of catches combined.

On the podcast we discussed how stark the offensive preferences were in the passing game – there was very little vertical stretch game (to the point where Rohan said that Green, a burner used to being used that way at his last stop, Oklahoma State, commented about it), and everything was going to the short guys. On my tally sheet, the seven wideouts who measured 6’1” or taller got just 15% of the non-garbage time targets, while the five who were 6’0” or under (and to be honest I think several of the latter group’s listed heights were being generous) got the remaining 85%. This struck me as a peculiar lack of use for the matchup advantages they had with the towering receivers Lewis and McIntosh (likely why they transferred out), the 6’3” Burroughs the staff had brought with them from Cincinnati, and the extremely talented Williams from USC.

This discussion informs the choice the offense faces with the two transfer additions to the wideout room: mid 3-star #14 WR Henry from Michigan State, whose 6’0” size and usage to date replicates what Wisconsin already has, and Joseph Griffin from Boston College, a low 4-star 6’3” flanker from a play-action offense. Griffin was a late transfer, after Spring practices ended so Rohan wasn’t able to observe him with the Badgers, so we’ll have to wait till the Fall to see what kind of choice the staff makes here – will they take advantage of Van Dyke’s arm plus some of the bigger and faster receivers to implement a real vertical passing game, or will they stick with more of the same as last year?

Either way I think the Badgers have adequate depth and I don’t think the receivers will be the bottleneck for whatever offense they want to be – there’s plenty of experience so they don’t have to worry about an insufficient number of guys working out, lots of redundancy at each body type so injuries shouldn’t become a significant issue, and sufficient talent to do what they want to do on the receiving end of the equation. The wideouts aren’t overflowing with guys who’ll win games all on their own but this unit won’t lose games either.

In 2023, the Badgers were setting up to play a couple of Cincinnati transfers on the interior of the line — #57 C Renfro and #60 OG Huber – with 2022’s starting tackles returning, bluechips #71 RT Mahlman and #79 LT Nelson, and longtime swing man Tanor Bortolini at the other guard spot. Nelson had played 2021 as the starting right guard (and graded out by far the best of his three seasons there for me, something Rohan pointed out as well) and Mahlman missed half the 2022 season with an injury, but this looked like a good meld of stability from the Wisconsin guys who’d been together for several years and Cincinnati guys who’d also played with each other.

The season didn’t work out that way. They weren’t able to get the Cincinnati offensive line coach, and instead brought over Jack Bicknell from UNC (which had one of the worst o-lines I’ve ever seen). Renfro got hurt and missed the entire season until the bowl game, so Bortolini moved over to center and had weirdly timed snapping issues all year. They made the very peculiar choice to play journeyman grad student mid 3-star Michael Furtney at the now open guard spot, instead of likely future starters #56 OG Brunner or Trey Wedig, both mid 4-stars. And Mahlman and Nelson’s issues in pass protection went from bad to worse as the offense became significantly more pass-dependent.

Bortolini was drafted in the 4^th round by the Colts (I was surprised, until Rohan reminded me it probably won’t be to snap the ball), while Furtney graduated and Wedig, who rotated in on planned drives at both guard spots, transferred to Indiana. They’ve also lost Nolan Rucci (the 5-star brother of the TE) to Penn State, Dylan Barrett to Iowa State, and Sean Timmis just doesn’t appear on the roster – none had any serious playing time outside some special teams and a gadget play.

Nelson, Brunner, Renfro, Huber, and Mahlman all return, and from left to right that appears to be the starting lineup for 2024. It means three years of continuity at the tackle spots and the guys they wanted to be playing last year at the interior spots. So with the exception of Brunner being inexperienced (though Rohan called him a “mauler” and possibly the best run-blocker on the team from watching him in practice) it’s a pretty veteran line. They’ve transitioned Bicknell to an off-field role, whatever that means, and brought in OL coach Blazek who most recently was at Vanderbilt but who was also part of the North Dakota State dynasty, and I have to believe that’s an upgrade. I also think that Rohan is probably right that the second year with Longo’s somewhat different power-RPO system will result in some improvements to what he called an “underwhelming” run-blocking performance in 2023.

I can see two outstanding issues, however. The first is playable depth – with Bortolini’s early departure and Rucci and Wedig transferring out (Rohan alluded to some discussions with the staff about playing time and positions), there’s only one returner who seems like a potentially playable guy, mid 4-star #67 OL Benzschawel. Rohan said he’ll likely be the 6^th man for the line, but he basically hasn’t seen the field besides special teams and a handful of mop-up snaps since arriving in 2021. The rest of the returners are much lower talent and just as inexperienced, or too raw to play yet in Rohan’s estimation.

The 2024 recruiting class looks very good, five guys with a high average in the 24/7 composite, but I think it’s likely they all redshirt unless there’s a catastrophe. That leaves the two transfers who arrive in the Fall, tackle Leyton Nelson from Vanderbilt who only got in 60 snaps last year, and guard Joey Okla from Illinois who played a few minutes of garbage time against FAU. Any of those three depth pieces could surprise me but it seems likely that even a single unavailability among the five starters would result in a significant step-down in performance.

The second issue is the likelihood that there’s no improvement in pass protection, which graded out quite poorly for both Mahlman and Nelson on my tally sheet (over 17% per-play error rates in pass pro for each tackle in both 2022 and 2023, though just half a year for Mahlman in 2022). To my eyes this had little to do with the particulars of the pass protection scheme and was almost entirely about their stiffness – they’re just not dropping fast enough or anchoring well enough to survive even halfway decent edge rushes, and they’re not processing exotic pass rushes like sims and twists by getting their weight over their feet in time to block the proper defender without being knocked to the ground. If Blazek doesn’t work some immediate coaching magic, and Van Dyke is less escapable than Mordecai was, then the passing offense could be in serious trouble.

The Badgers had an elite defense in 2021, the last full year under Chryst and with Leonhard as DC. Their second-place finish in F+ advanced statistics matched my expectations from every stat I track through charting, in which they had elite defensive efficiency and explosive play prevention at both the run and the pass, across all down & distance situations and regardless of field position.

At the end of 2021, their player personnel losses were significant: at least one starter at every position — nose Bryson Williams, end Matt Henningsen, OLB Noah Burks, ILBs Leo Chenal and Jack Sanborn, corners Caesar Dancy-Williams, Dean Engram, and Faion Hicks, and safeties Scott Nelson and Collin Wilder — and more than half of those to the NFL.

Despite that and the division of attention in being the interim head coach for the final eight games, Leonhard’s defense remained elite in 2022, both in F+ and my model from charting … the only difference in performance is a bit of a falloff in explosive pass prevention in 2^nd & short scenarios, but that’s not enough to move the needle more than a few ranks overall.

The player losses at the end of 2022 were tough too; particularly, as Rohan noted, nose Keanu Benton and OLB Nick Herbig from the front, who both were drafted by the Steelers in the 2^nd and the 4^th rounds respectively. But the new staff didn’t lose any of the ends or ILBs, the secondary losses were pretty manageable, and nobody else wound up in the NFL – from a roster standpoint this looked like they were set up to continue at a high level, since the Badgers were able to reload from worse losses the year before.

According to F+ that’s what happened, ranking Wisconsin 16^th defensively for 2023. But that doesn’t match up with Rohan’s or my observations or the record from charting, in which there was a significant collapse in defensive efficiency by almost ten points in success rate against both the run and the pass, and over 20 points in short-yardage effectiveness (although explosive play prevention and yards per play surrendered stayed pretty good). My model would have dropped Wisconsin’s defense to the low-40s in 2023 with numbers like these.

Rohan said he saw a step down in defensive line performance in 2023 and suggested the discrepancy might be a “bend but don’t break” philosophy where Wisconsin gives ground between the 20s but toughens up in the redzone. I thought that was a good idea to look into and said I’d run a regression analysis after we finished recording, but it turned out the opposite was the case: the Badgers were about six and a half percentage points weaker of a redzone defense than they were between the 20s, actually underwater in success rate against both the run and the pass in all comparable situations once the opponent crossed their 20. Raw stats back this up as well – Wisconsin ranked 92^nd nationally in rate of redzone touchdowns surrendered last year (64%), down from 13^th in 2021 (47%) and 57^h in 2022 (58.5%).

Wisconsin did perform well in raw stats in scoring defense as Rohan pointed out, surrendering just 20.2 points per game for a 21^st ranking nationally. But this appears to be an artifact of the Badgers’ historically awful schedule of poor offensive opponents which in the regular season averaged 23.6 points and had an average scoring offense of 83^rd in raw stats. Holding opponents to about a field goal below their normal score is more in line with a 40^th ranked defense; top-15 defenses typically reduce their opponents by two or more scores.

It seems to me the best explanation is that F+ got fooled badly in this rare instance. I think the pairwise comparison component mistook Wisconsin’s weak schedule (measured by every objective criteria like success rate, passer rating, Eckel score, etc.) including the less dynamic QBs of two teams with otherwise higher offensive outputs, Illinois and LSU, for the Badgers playing strong defense.

In my opinion, the defensive falloff was real in 2023, was a significant part of the team’s 7-6 record, and because they’d handled more significant personnel losses without as big of a problem under the previous staff the year prior, most likely attributable to the coaching change. I believe that Leonhard was holding the team together defensively and presented a very high extra value as a coordinator, who will be next to impossible to replace.

The losses on the interior of the defensive line from the previous two offseasons continued this cycle, with four transfers out: starting nose Gio Paez to LSU, starting 1-/3-tech Rodas Johnson to Texas A&M, and backup ends Darian Varner to Cincinnati and Mike Jarvis to Liberty. Isaiah Mullens and Isaac Townsend also graduated without playing.

The Badgers return starter #90 DE J. Thompson who’ll continue in his job, Paez’s backup #92 NT Neal, and #68 DE Barten who was rotated in at different times behind both ends and noses last year but Rohan says will probably be more of an early down nose or 1-tech in 2024. The only other returners are #91 NT Howard and #96 DE McDonald, but I basically didn’t see them at all last year and Rohan said that from what he saw in practice he expects that to continue. Howard is a redshirt freshman so that’s to be expected but the ship has probably sailed on redshirt senior McDonald.

When we recorded with Rohan, Wisconsin had already taken one FCS transfer interior lineman, #94 DE Hills, whom Rohan got to see in practice and is experienced enough (and the need for more bodies is great enough) that he’s probably a lock for the rotation. But Rohan also said Wisconsin was hot on the trail of another transfer lineman and he was spot-on – a couple days after we recorded the Badgers signed another FCS transfer, Brandon Lane, who’s flipped from Michigan State and Louisville. In his write-up of Lane, Rohan described him as an end in Tressel’s defense in a 3-tech or 4i stance despite being big enough to play nose.

There are also three prep recruits on the interior of the line – low 4-star #93 DE Willor who could be a nose or rotate to a 1- or 3-tech, high 3-star Dillan Johnson who Rohan said is expected to be a true nose, and mid 3-star Hank Weber who he said will be a 5-tech. Willor is on campus but doesn’t appear to be at playing weight for his role yet and the other two are Fall enrollees, so I expect all three to redshirt.

Thompson graded out well on my tally sheet the last two seasons but Neal and Barten were a notable step behind the guys they were backing up last year – we’ll have to wait and see if they can step up in 2024, as well as how the two FCS transfers take to Power conference play. If the Badgers get happy answers to all four of those questions then they should hold steady or even make some incremental progress on their interior line performance compared to 2023.

But given the indications we discussed on the podcast that this was a problem area last year and how much the personnel losses have been mounting for several offseasons now, it seems unlikely that they’ll leap back up to an elite unit in 2024. They’re looking at only five playable guys in a three-down defense, with question marks about the quality of four of them (Neal and Barten as middling backups becoming starters, Hills and Lane as FCS guys making the jump). I think more moves were in order to get back to the very high standard Leonhard set.

Wisconsin’s defense uses two OLBs on virtually every snap, and they’re bigger edge-setters rather than exclusively speed rushers as in other odd-front defenses (the DEs in this structure are big enough to be considered DTs in just about any other system; the podcast has a lengthy discussion to tease out where everybody plays because the official roster unhelpfully lists just two positions for a defensive front that has at least four, arguably seven distinct roles). There was a four-man rotation at OLB in 2023, though with a couple of clear primary players in CJ Goetz and #17 OLB Peterson, and a secondary pair in Kaden Johnson and Jeff Pietrowski.

All of them but Peterson have departed – Goetz and Pietrowski graduated, while Johnson transferred to Nevada and a couple backups who I didn’t see play in 2023 also transferred out, TJ Bollers to Cal and Jordan Mayer to Penn State. The only other returner on scholarship is #59 OLB Witt, a mid 3-star who I basically haven’t seen since he arrived in 2020 and I think is probably unlikely to play in 2024.

Rohan said he thought from watching this unit in practice that this is the most improved group on the team, which surprised me since I liked Goetz a lot and thought Pietrowski was a pretty good backup. Rohan thought they should have been producing more havoc plays last year; he liked how much Peterson has developed this offseason and that FCS transfer #0 OLB Pius and Syracuse transfer #8 OLB Lowery flashed in practices this Spring (I bit my tongue about them going up against Wisconsin’s OTs). There are also two talented prep recruits, borderline 4-stars #19 OLB Heiberger and #51 OLB Lafaele, who arrived early and practiced but are a bit undersized right now.

Given who’s in the room, Rohan’s call on the rotation has got to be accurate – it’ll be Peterson and Lowery on standard downs and Pius in on passing downs for extra havoc, given his exceptional numbers at his previous stop. The freshmen will probably redshirt to develop but will play in a few games to get their feet wet since they’re decently talented and the Badgers are likely going to lose all or nearly all of their edge production at the end of 2024.

I think Rohan may well be right that this unit produces more havoc than last year – Pius was a Butkus finalist and I like the player development of former Syracuse DC Tony White, now at Nebraska, so I think Lowery will work out. But their depth is taking a hit since they’re going from four playable guys in 2023 to three in 2024, two upperclassmen backups to one, and increasing the freshmen they need to give reps to from one (zero, really) to two. A single injury would likely derail this unit, and I’d be concerned about a production falloff late in tight games due to fatigue.

Wisconsin has played the same three guys in rotation at their two inside linebacker spots for the past two seasons: #36 ILB Chaney, Jordan Turner, and Maema Njongmeta. Last year I saw just a bit of play for three backups as well, senior walk-on Tatum Grass and true freshmen mid 3-stars #28 ILB Alliegro and #42 ILB Jansey (the last wore jersey #27 in 2023).

The starter Chaney returns, as do backups Alliegro and Jansey. Grass and Njongmeta graduated (the latter signed a UDFA with the Bengals), while Turner transferred to Michigan State. A couple of high 3-star underclassmen, Bryan Sanborn (brother of the former starter) and Aidan Vaughan, have left without playing – the former retired and the latter transferred to Liberty.

I agreed with Rohan’s take on the podcast that inside linebacker play has deteriorated since the end of the 2021 season and the loss of NFL talents Chenal and the elder Sanborn – the three guys in the rotation since then have graded out average at best and in some cases well below average in diagnosis and taking the right angle to the play. I thought this much turnover in the unit – deliberate or not – seeking an upgrade was appropriate.

They’ve taken three transfers, all originally bluechips out of high school: #15 Cheeks from North Carolina, #4 ILB Curtis from USC, and #7 ILB J. Thomas from Arkansas (who originally signed with this staff at Cincinnati). Thomas’ production and size are superb, and Rohan said his positional flexibility in practice opens up some interesting different pass rush packages – he seems a lock for a starting spot next to Chaney and I would be shocked if he weren’t a substantial upgrade over his predecessors.

Cheeks and Curtis are higher talents on paper, mid 4-stars, but both are pretty young – the former has barely seen the field and the latter was forced into action on a terrible defense last year as a true freshman, with a peculiarly lanky body type for the position. Rohan and I both think they’re developmental projects for the future. It looks like Alliegro and Jansey are more likely to get the backup minutes in 2024 since they’ve been in the system longer, despite being lower rated prospects.

Like the outside linebackers, I think the inside linebackers are probably improving the frontline of the unit with a transfer starter who’ll net them better production, but are losing so much on the backline that the concern is depth and fatigue. There are enough bodies here that they’ll be able to continue to play if a starter is unavailable or needs to rotate out, but I think the step down from Thomas to just about everybody else will be substantial, and that makes the odds of getting back to elite play precarious.

The safeties are in great shape. There’s just one departure: backup Travian Blaylock signed a UDFA with the Bears after missing a lot of time in recent seasons with injury. They return one of the best in the conference and the team’s leading tackler, #24 DB Wohler, who’s played every game he’s been available for over the last three seasons since enrolling as a true freshman bluechip in 2021, though he missed half the year in 2022 with a broken leg.

Wohler plays an interesting “dollar” position (the name comes from one of Tressel’s original plans to run a 2-3-6 defense, but they’ve adapted to Leonhard’s 3-4 / 2-4-5 structure that they inherited) in which half the time he plays deep as something like a free safety, and the other half he’s in the box as more like a third inside backer, with equally high marks on my tally sheet at both. I’ve also never seen him rotate out, so I don’t know who his backup is or if the iron man even needs one.

The safeties also return #9 DB Brown and #14 DB Zachman, who rotated at the other safety spot (I’d call it the strong safety but I’m not sure of Wisconsin’s nomenclature), plus #13 DB Latu who’d previously transferred in from Utah – Rohan told me that Latu had played earlier in the year but lost playing time as the season went on, but I don’t really have him on my tally sheet so I’m not sure if it was significant. They’ve also got additional depth from walk-on junior #18 DB Arnett, redshirt freshmen #20 DB Moore and #25 DB Taylor, and a couple of true freshmen who arrive in the Fall.

The depth, experience, and grades here are very good, and the areas the safeties are most responsible for – deep centerfield pass coverage and explosive play prevention – are the ones that experienced little to no falloff from their local peak in 2021, so I’m expecting more of the same in 2024. A lot of fun was had when the Badgers hired DB coach Grinch after he’d been fired from USC, including on our podcast. But while I think the narrative that Grinch was just a bad coordinator and would be good as a standalone safeties coach is dead wrong, I don’t think he can do any damage here in 2024 – the guys who’ll be playing are already well developed.

The corners have more work to do than the safeties in replacing lost production, but they look well situated to handle it. In 2023 I saw three outside corners playing — #10 CB Fourqurean, #2 CB Hallman, and Alexander Smith – plus some backup minutes for true freshman #21 CB Dulclona. Three other freshmen redshirted, #22 CB Arnold, #16 CB Snowden, and AJ Tisdell, while senior #12 CB Lofy missed the year with an injury.

All of those guys return except Tisdell, who didn’t play, and Smith, who Rohan said was losing time as the year went on with Division-II transfer Fourqurean stepping up and taking it from him. Fourquerean has also added weight since dealing with thoracic outlet syndrome and is up to 190 lbs on the most recent roster update.

The fifth DB when the Badgers pull the nose and go to their nickel package is probably best understood as a slot corner, and most of the time when they were in that look the guy I saw in the position was Jason Maitre, who’s now graduated. It appears that experienced Toledo transfer #5 CB Delancy was brought in to play that spot, but projecting it out of Spring practice is a little tricky due to an injury to Hallman, the likely starter at outside corner. Rohan said that situation moved Delancy, probably temporarily, outside to Hallman’s spot, and had a variety of other DBs in the nickel position like Lofy, Brown, Dulclona, and perhaps a couple others.

I think given Delancy’s size they probably want him at nickel when everyone’s healthy, though it’s curious that they moved him off his spot when Hallman got hurt instead of keeping him in position and putting one of the ostensible backup outside corners in for Hallman. That raises questions about the quality of the depth on the outside, though if they’re able to cover it up by shifting pieces around and having the much deeper safety room fill in the inside position then it might not really matter.

I agreed with Rohan that the corners shouldn’t have any problems with their personnel and replacing their departures with equivalent quality for 2024. The outstanding question is what that quality actually is – the passing offenses they faced in 2023 were almost uniformly abysmal and provided poor tests, and one has to go back to September of 2022 to find a game against a QB with a significantly above average passer rating … when CJ Stroud threw five touchdowns in a 52-point rout.