3-2-1: A look at June as Wisconsin hits the recruiting dead period

BadgerBlitz.com brings you our weekly "3-2-1" series where we focus in on how Wisconsin performed in June heading into the dead period.

Wisconsin has enjoyed a great amount of team success in June. But if there's a position group that has built up momentum over the last handful of weeks, look no further than the offensive line. Much of that can be attributed to first-year position coach AJ Blazek, who has been a shot of adrenaline on the recruiting front. But Casey Rabach, UW's Director of Scouting, is working right alongside in lockstep.

In the 2025 class, Rabach was instrumental in landing long-time commit Michael Roeske, and Blazek did a nice job of identifying and securing a commitment from Cam Clark in late April.

But specifically in June, Blazek pulled one of the bigger surprises when he locked up four-star Logan Powell. The Badgers pulled out a pledge before scheduled officials to Arizona and Alabama. A few days later, Blazek and Rabach were able to get Nolan Davenport to shut down his recruitment after just one official with the Badgers. From the outside looking in, Wisconsin was not considered the favorite for either heading into officials.

“I’ve known AJ for a long time. He was at Western Illinois when I was at Glendale Community College,” Brophy Prep head coach Jason Jewell told BadgerBlitz.com. “He signed a few of our players a long time ago, so I’ve known him for a while. When he got hired at Wisconsin we connected again in Logan’s recruitment. He was very, very persistent in recruiting not only Logan, but Logan’s family. Logan is a huge family kid and that was super important to him.

“I told Coach Blazek that you have a real shot here as a dark horse in his recruitment. Give credit to AJ for sticking to him and getting a kid who I think will be a great player for Wisconsin. AJ has a great personality and he knew what it took to land Logan. Logan is a family man, so AJ recruited the parents as well. They are a big part of the deal and that worked well for Wisconsin. He was smart in how he recruited and he went after that family aspect.”

The duo has a chance to knock this class out of the park if they can beat out Clemson and Michigan for four-star guard Hardy Watts. The Rivals250 talent is expected to make his final decision on July 1.

UW also has a good amount of momentum building up in the following two cycles. Of the 10 visitors for the Badgers' BBQ on June 15, five were high-priority offensive line targets: Evan Goodwin, Tyler Merrill, James Thomas, Sidney Rouleau and Marky Walbridge. Wisconsin also hosted offered in-state talent Samuel Simpson for a camp and unofficial visit last week.

In the 2027 class, the Badgers have offered three projected offensive linemen: Tristan Dare (Southlake, TX), Cole Reiter (Germantown, WI) and Rouleau (Pennington, NJ). All three visited in June.

In a short amount of time, Blazek and Rabach have set the Badgers up for immediate and future success on the recruiting front.