Wisconsin football 2026

[LouisEly]

UW lands their 5th in-state recruit in 4-star OT Cole Reiter.

24/7 is projecting the Mallinger brothers and Kingston Allen to UW which would make 8 in-state kids and three of them 4-star with one of the Mallinger boys a chance to make it four 4-stars.

I don't know if UW has ever had that many in-state scholarship recruits.

[JosephC]

Reiter is a big get for them.  Even though he's not the #1 rated Wisconsin player by the recruiting media, I've been told by insiders (LOL!) that he was the #1 want for the program...and by a pretty large margin.  Take it for what it is worth.

[LouisEly]

Ethan MacIntosh also has a chance to be a 4-star as well.  He has the frame and the athleticism and absolutely projects to left tackle; he's held back in the ratings because he hasn't fully filled out yet.  24/7 has him at 6'7", 250.  If he can get to at least 280 in a year he has a decent chance to rise to a 4-star.

[LouisEly]

On 3/26/2026 at 8:28 PM, LouisEly said:

24/7 is projecting the Mallinger brothers

And boom goes the dynamite.

 

[Samurai Bucky]

17 hours ago, LouisEly said:

And boom goes the dynamite.

It looks like there are 7 hard commits to the '27 class so far.  All from Wisconsin.

The '26 class (according to 24/7) of Enrollees or LOI signees has 15.   Only one from Wisconsin.

Perhaps Fickell has had a change of heart about Wisconsin kids all of a sudden.  Hmmm....

[nate82]

5 minutes ago, Samurai Bucky said:

Perhaps Fickell has had a change of heart about Wisconsin kids all of a sudden.  Hmmm....

Or the more logical explanation is that these kids fit into the system and in previous years they did not.  

[LouisEly]

52 minutes ago, nate82 said:

Or the more logical explanation is that these kids fit into the system and in previous years they did not.  

Yep.  Last year there were two they really wanted.  One they got (Ben Wenzel, LB), one they did not (Gavin Meier, OL).  The WRs and OLs they had - up until close to signing day - were rated higher on most if not all services than the WR and OL kids from Wisconsin they didn't go hard after.

Also, raising the scholarship limit to 105 helps.  They can take a bigger class, and some kids they may not have had room for in the past and hoped they walked on they now have a few extra scholarships for.

[LouisEly]

22 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

Perhaps Fickell has had a change of heart about Wisconsin kids all of a sudden.  Hmmm....

 

One thing we have to keep in mind is that the top kids start getting recruited when they are sophomores (QBs often earlier). It's two years before they commit. For the class of '23 (signed December 2022) and '24 (signed December 2023) he had already developed relationships with non-WI kids and was trying to play catch-up with WI kids that the prior regime didn't develop relationships with.

 

For '25 he got a bunch of WI kids. Flanagan and Strebig are Catholic kids who went to Catholic HS and when ND comes calling... that's a really tough battle to win. Poteat wasn't coming to UW because they fired his father. But he got Roeske, Dean, Catalano, Pettaway, and Bork.

 

So this narrative that he hasn't been recruiting WI kids until now is false. He got just about everybody he realistically could get for '25, and for '26 the talent level was poor and got 1 of the 2 he wanted.

[JosephC]

23 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

It looks like there are 7 hard commits to the '27 class so far.  All from Wisconsin.

The '26 class (according to 24/7) of Enrollees or LOI signees has 15.   Only one from Wisconsin.

Perhaps Fickell has had a change of heart about Wisconsin kids all of a sudden.  Hmmm....

They are going after Wisconsin kids because they don't want to spend significant money in high school recruiting.  Will there be an occasional big fish out of Texas that they feel they must have and will throw some money at that guy?  Sure.  But for the most part, they are going to go cheap with high schoolers and throw more money at transfer players.  So they are now going after Wisconsin kids early to try and develop some loyalty, so when a bigger school comes around later they are hoping they will be able to retain them.  Also, for positions like the offensive line where they want to use a "high school recruit and develop" type strategy, they are hoping the Wisconsin kids will have the loyalty where they won't look to bail after backing up for two years...even when there is an opening and a promise that they will be a likely starter in year #3. 

And for a guy like Reiter, there will be plenty of other schools going after him hard later.  He's a major get for them now, and he'll be a major retain for them if he is on the roster in the fall.  I've been told they were only lukewarm on the Mallinger brothers, and they wouldn't have considered it any sort of major loss of those guys would have gone elsewhere.  I've NOT been told this, but two years ago I very much suspect they would not have gone after Dustin Roach at all this early, and would have only had him on the radar as a backup plan late in the process if there was still an opening.  And that is not a knock on Roach, who could develop into a very good player.  But he's the perfect example of "do we want to tie up resources in a marginal Wisconsin kid like this early, when we probably can get a better player elsewhere at a later date" approach that they seemed to operate under the last couple of years. 

[LouisEly]

On 3/26/2026 at 8:28 PM, LouisEly said:

24/7 is projecting... Kingston Allen to UW

And boom goes the dynamite.

[homer]

I'm glad they are putting the recruiting forcefield back around the state again. 

[homer]

Seems as good a place as any for this.

 

Report out that McIntosh is stepping down as AD

[yourout]

5 minutes ago, homer said:

Seems as good a place as any for this.

 

Report out that McIntosh is stepping down as AD

Really? That's good news.

[HarryDoyle]

So he can join the Big Ten office as its newly created deputy commissioner for strategy.

[JosephC]

While this should be cause for a major celebration, I am somewhat disappointed.  I was hoping he would stick around long enough to get fired, preferably in the most humiliating way possible.

 

[LouisEly]

16 hours ago, JosephC said:

While this should be cause for a major celebration, I am somewhat disappointed.  I was hoping he would stick around long enough to get fired, preferably in the most humiliating way possible.

 

Not with his son coming in as a recruit.  I'm sure his kid(s) already have to deal with more of this than they should.

[owbc]

This is exciting news. Hopefully it is the first step to firing Fickell. A couple of poor performances with the soft schedule should be enough.