Wisconsin Football 2025

[LouisEly]

Spring practices are underway.  What I had hypothesized about the DL is apparently coming to fruition - they are going with a 4-3/4-2-5 with bigger DEs.

First team in practice was Charles Perkins (6’2, 316) and Parker Petersen (6’4, 315) in the middle, with Corey Walker (6’5, 297) and Darryl Peterson (6’1, 260) on the edges.  Second team was Micheal Garner (6’6, 300) and Tyrese Fearbry (6’4, 249) at DE with, Dillan Johnson (6’2, 293) and Brandon Lane (6’3, 320) on the interior.

Eugene Hilton was doing a lot of getting open and making catches.  He's going to be part of the WR rotation.

[RedStickBrew]

5 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

Spring practices are underway.  What I had hypothesized about the DL is apparently coming to fruition - they are going with a 4-3/4-2-5 with bigger DEs.

First team in practice was Charles Perkins (6’2, 316) and Parker Petersen (6’4, 315) in the middle, with Corey Walker (6’5, 297) and Darryl Peterson (6’1, 260) on the edges.  Second team was Micheal Garner (6’6, 300) and Tyrese Fearbry (6’4, 249) at DE with, Dillan Johnson (6’2, 293) and Brandon Lane (6’3, 320) on the interior.

Eugene Hilton was doing a lot of getting open and making catches.  He's going to be part of the WR rotation.

Mason Rieger is also back from post season surgery and reportedly looks great. He will certainly factor in off the edge as well

[Jim French Stepstool]

They seem to like the idea of playing 5 DBs, & I hated that concept when the DL was smallish, lacked depth & there were only three on the field. A 4-2-5 I could live with, esp with the increased size mentioned by @LouisEly.

[yourout]

With next year's schedule they can actually be a better team and still have a worse record.

I'm going to remain skeptical until they show me they can actually out game plan someone.

[homer]

The QB that committed over the weekend looks impressive. Ran a 10.66 100m dash. That's moving.

[LouisEly]

First game tonight against Miami (OH).  For all of the turnover that UW has had, I think Miami (OH) has something like 2/3rds of their roster new this year.

Looking forward to seeing how the interior OL performs.  Brunner is nasty and Mandell, the redshirt freshman who won the starting RG position, is an ox.  Those guys are going to move some DL against their will.

Biggest concern is LT.  Shouldn't have to worry about that against Miami (OH), but we'll see if Heinzen gets chipping help from TEs or a blocking RB shading his way.

[RedStickBrew]

35 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

First game tonight against Miami (OH).  For all of the turnover that UW has had, I think Miami (OH) has something like 2/3rds of their roster new this year.

Looking forward to seeing how the interior OL performs.  Brunner is nasty and Mandell, the redshirt freshman who won the starting RG position, is an ox.  Those guys are going to move some DL against their will.

Biggest concern is LT.  Shouldn't have to worry about that against Miami (OH), but we'll see if Heinzen gets chipping help from TEs or a blocking RB shading his way.

I agree the O-line play is going to be key. Can’t wait for kickoff

[young guns]

Jones is looking like a pretty good RB.  No idea where he came from.  And as a whole I'm already liking things better than last year.

[RedStickBrew]

11 minutes ago, young guns said:

Jones is looking like a pretty good RB.  No idea where he came from.  And as a whole I'm already liking things better than last year.

Jones was part of the 24’ recruiting class. He has a chance to be a stud

[young guns]

Another year and another qb injury.  Non contact on a knee that already has a brace does not seem like it will end well.

[stoutdude04]

Lol. This is becoming laughable. Is this 3 years in a row?

[LouisEly]

30 minutes ago, young guns said:

Another year and another qb injury.  Non contact on a knee that already has a brace does not seem like it will end well.

Thought it was his foot.  Looked more like an Achilles.

[young guns]

1 minute ago, LouisEly said:

Thought it was his foot.  Looked more like an Achilles.

Not sure.  I guess the brace just made me assume.  Either way not good.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

As a casual UW observer, the fall of this program and the speed of it is appalling. 

[yourout]

19 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

As a casual UW observer, the fall of this program and the speed of it is appalling. 

At best this is a four-win team

[owbc]

18 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

As a casual UW observer, the fall of this program and the speed of it is appalling. 

Combination of many factors but I doubt Wisconsin will ever be competitive in the NIL era. 

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

13 minutes ago, owbc said:

Combination of many factors but I doubt Wisconsin will ever be competitive in the NIL era. 

Honestly? I'm more and more skeptical of the value of football to a university athletic program. Seems like the bubble is close to popping (there is just going to be vast inequality between the top-15 programs and everyone else). If you can't be a regular playoff team, that is so much staff, facility, and salary outlay for diminishing returns. The growth curve is just a lot better on volleyball, for example.

[yourout]

18 minutes ago, owbc said:

Combination of many factors but I doubt Wisconsin will ever be competitive in the NIL era. 

I think in the NIL era it's going to be easier to compete in basketball than it is in football.

[yourout]

While not particularly impressive it was still nice to not see the spread and the disaster that was the last two years.

[LouisEly]

Took a little while, but O'Neill looked like a capable backup.  A bit Brooks Bollinger like.

Need to find a solution to the OL, specifically LT.  RG was spotty as well.

[Jim French Stepstool]

The only good thing I saw re the OL was that it seemed to wear down the front seven of the Redhawks late in the game. Other than that, not good. Heinzen had a rough debut. I'll give the group time to mesh, but they might not see a more vulnerable defensive front than what they saw tonite w/the possible exception of next week. Despite not a lot of help I thought all three TBs ran hard & given the circumstances were effective. And IF there's a run game able to at least partially occupy a defense I think O'Neil would suffice. His feet got a little happy at times but that's understandable. Looked very adept finding the correct seam on the QB draw. I also liked how they occasionally used Jackson Acker at a traditional RB spot as a blocker.

Hard to gauge the defense because Miami just had too many new parts to sustain anything consistently. But that being said they showed a real ability to make plays from the LB corps. Alliegro we knew about. Cheeks looked a little more consistently disruptive, and Reiger stood out. And I think the secondary may hold up pretty well, especially if Fourqurean is allowed to play.

 

[Jim French Stepstool]

2 hours ago, yourout said:

I think in the NIL era it's going to be easier to compete in basketball than it is in football.

Other than QB I don't know how much NIL money goes into FB. In hoops it's so much easier for one or two players to make a huge difference on a team, and therefore demand a payday. 

Flip side of course is that there are so many more on a FB roster. I'm just not sure how much most of them can command. Like in basketball, I'm sure many of these portal guys wind up hustling to find a spot--anywhere. That's the sidebar to the story that you don't hear about.

[RedStickBrew]

Certainly not a perfect night but I thought there were some flashes of good play from several players. It was nice to see the TEs involved in the pass game. WRs Anthony and Ballard were open a lot. Front 7 on D looked good and got some pressure.

With the schedule I’m just hoping for a bowl game this year. Pulling out a W at Bama would be nice too since I’m making the drive over to Tuscaloosa for that game. 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

9 hours ago, owbc said:

Combination of many factors but I doubt Wisconsin will ever be competitive in the NIL era. 

I'll be the first to say my knowledge of CFB is minimal, but the NIL sounds like a half-hearted excuse. UW has never really been recruiting blue chips in either major sport. They get them now and again, but they weren't getting guys who would have scored big NILs outside of a handful of kids. They did well on local kids, mostly linemen, and a pipeline of skill guys from NJ who were getting passed over by the top tier.

NIL or not, there are plenty of excellent HS players who would play at Wisconsin. They either aren't getting the right kids anymore or don't know how to put them together, or some combination of both. 

The basketball program will power through probably because they simply don't need as many players and similarly, they've been doing it anyway with a core of unsexy guys. I don't know. Just seems like there is more to it than 'Poor UW, the NIL just isn't fair.' Seems like that's a pass they don't deserve.

[owbc]

1 hour ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

I'll be the first to say my knowledge of CFB is minimal, but the NIL sounds like a half-hearted excuse. UW has never really been recruiting blue chips in either major sport. They get them now and again, but they weren't getting guys who would have scored big NILs outside of a handful of kids. They did well on local kids, mostly linemen, and a pipeline of skill guys from NJ who were getting passed over by the top tier.

NIL or not, there are plenty of excellent HS players who would play at Wisconsin. They either aren't getting the right kids anymore or don't know how to put them together, or some combination of both. 

The basketball program will power through probably because they simply don't need as many players and similarly, they've been doing it anyway with a core of unsexy guys. I don't know. Just seems like there is more to it than 'Poor UW, the NIL just isn't fair.' Seems like that's a pass they don't deserve.

The real reason was the pressure to be a national championship contender which caused them to fire coaches who were loyal to Wisconsin and doing a pretty good job in pursuit of a radical program change that would supposedly vault them to the next level. This just happened to occur at the same time as NIL, which gave the programs with the biggest donor/sponsorship bases a huge advantage that they didn't previously have. 

It's ironic that we pointed and laughed at Nebraska for making a similar foolhardy pursuit, and now the same thing happened to us. Except Nebraska now has a better chance to actually improve because of their ability to finance NIL deals. 

And meanwhile, the playoff expanded, so if Wisconsin would have just continued to win at the level that they previously did, they would have no problem making playoff appearances. But those days are long gone now.