Wisconsin Football Building Momentum w/ Strong 2020 Recruiting Class

Wisconsin Football’s 2020 recruiting class is ranked 25th nationally, which is their best to date since the Online Rankings Era began.

The second round of National Signing Day for the nation’s top football recruits took place earlier this week and the Wisconsin Football program capped off a recruiting class that will be touted as their best since the Online Rankings Era began.

According to 247Sports online rankings, the Badgers’ 2020 class ranks 25th nationally which is up four spots from last year’s class and ranks fifth overall in the Big Ten. And in this class, Wisconsin landed five 4-star prospects which once again, is a program record.

All five of the Badgers 4-star recruits come at positions that have traditionally been strengths of the football program. They will get a big boost at OLB with the signings of Nick Herbig all the way from Hawaii and Kaden Johnson who each rank 9th and 13th in the nation at their position.

Meanwhile, the offensive line gets its next crop of potential NFL talent as the Badgers landed Jack Nelson and Trey Wedig, both of whom call Wisconsin home, and they rank 10th and 7th respectively, at the tackle position.

And last but certainly not least is Jalen Berger, the 15th ranked running back in the country from Don Bosco Prep out in New Jersey where the Badgers have developed quite a reputation for finding star running backs. Most recently of which was Jonathan Taylor. As a true-freshman, Berger is expected to come in a compete for playing time immediately.

Obviously there is the more immediate impact on the field that we hope these signees have in the upcoming years, but we also have to consider the long-term positive effects these types of recruiting classes can have. Often times recruiting classes build on each other as future top recruits see the program and current 4-star players having success.

In fact, in a recent article by Jesse Temple of The Athletic (subscription required), a big reason that Herbig chose Wisconsin over all of the other schools that were courting him was because of their pedigree for putting linebackers into the NFL. And over the coming years we will hopefully see this momentum build for Wisconsin as more top recruits at other positions choose to play here as well.

The 2019 recruiting class ranked 29th nationally and this year’s ranked 25th, who knows what 2021 has in store but for a program that doesn’t feel too far off from being a legit contender to make the College Football Playoffs, they’re continuing to add more and more difference makers to this roster.