Wisconsin football saw its season end without bowl practices for the first time since 2001. The Badgers hit a new low this century in year two of the Luke Fickell era, and will face a critical get-right year in 2025.

Over the next two weeks, BadgerBlitz.com will examine the 2024 Badgers position by position. Today, we'll continue with the tailbacks, a group that should be headlined by young faces in 2025.

POSITIONAL REVIEWS: Quarterbacks

The Badgers flew into New Jersey knowing they had a tall task ahead of them: stopping the dynamic tailback Kyle Monangai. Rutgers' star ball-carrier had run all over the Scarlet Knights' opponents and had much of the attention heading into this Week 7 clash. Saturday afternoon in Piscataway, however, Wisconsin flipped the script.

It was the running back in Cardinal and White that dominated on the ground that day. Tawee Walker had a career game, amassing 198 yards rushing and three touchdowns on 24 carries. With all of the talk about the opposing tailback, Walker reminded onlookers that he, too, is a dynamic player.

"We came here to be more physical than them, and the run game just came through," Walker told BadgerBliz.com after the game.

Walker's final score was his longest, a 55-yard scamper to put the exclamation point on the victory. That was also his longest run all season.

Cade Yacamelli also had his best game of the season in Jersey. He racked up 72 yards on just four touches, helping the Badgers run for a whopping 309 yards. The beatdown against the Scarlet Knights was as good as it got on the ground.

Perhaps nothing signified the futility of the 2024 Badgers' season more than their inability to run the ball against Minnesota. In the biggest game of the year, a must-win in order to reach a bowl game and keep the Axe in Madison, Wisconsin's tailbacks were nowhere to be found when they were needed most.

Walker ran for 36 yards on 14 carries, or 2.6 yards-per-carry. Darrion Dupree managed just 15 yards on seven attempts. The Badgers were completely stonewalled on the ground, and they finished with a (not sack-adjusted) 36 total rushing yards. A slap in the face to everything this program was build upon, especially against a bitter rival like Minnesota.

Now, the offensive line certainly deserves some blame here, but the Badgers' tailbacks let them down. After Walker's valiant 97 yards on 20 carries in the near-upset over Oregon, he seemed to disappear in the proceeding games against Nebraska and Minnesota. The promising freshman Dupree, who tended to add some juice whenever he checked into games, got absolutely nothing going. Sometimes, when things aren't going well, your best players simply have to make plays. That didn't happen for much of the season, and definitely didn't happen against the Gophers.

Thanks to a three-tailback 2024 recruiting class, the Badgers have a myriad of young options in their backfield moving forward. As the room currently stands, Wisconsin is projected to have five scholarship running backs on its roster in 2025: Dupree, Yacamelli, Dilin Jones, Gideon Ituka and Jackson Acker.

Now, Dupree flashed some real potential and ultimately became the Badgers second-string tailback this fall. The sky appears to be the limit for him, and it'll be especially interesting to see how he looks after a year in Brady Collins' strength program. Think about how much more explosive Yacamelli was in 2024, for example, and now apply that to an athlete of Dupree's caliber. That's exciting.

Behind him, there's still plenty of good options. Yacamelli led the team with a staggering 8.3 yards-per-carry, and despite Fickell downplaying that as a product of the "system," he's developed into a solid rotational, change-of-pace option for a Power Four backfield. Jones also flashed in his limited eight carries, ripping off a 47-yard run against Purdue.

Ultimately, the Badgers have promising youth and (statistically) underwhelming experience. That could lead the staff to seek a portal ball-carrier to bridge the gap, but Wisconsin could also go all-in on its youth movement in the backfield in 2025.

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