Wisconsin's 2018 football season is right around the corner, so BadgerBlitz.com contributors Jon McNamara, John Veldhuis, Jon Gorman and Jonathan Mills ranked the Top 30 players who we think are the keys to success for Paul Chryst's squad this year.

Playing time, past performance and positional depth all factored in to our individual rankings, which were combined into a final score.

30: CHRIS JAMES

Anthony Lotti is coming off of a solid sophomore campaign, where he increased his average yards per punt from 37.7 yards in 2016 to 40.0 in 2017. Lotti also forced 18 fair catches (compared to 13 in 2016) and had 25 punts downed inside the opponent's 20-yard line for the second season in a row.

Lotti came in to his sophomore year looking to make a few tweaks to help him kick the ball deeper, though, and it certainly seemed like he succeeded. 12 of Lotti's punts went for more than 50 yards in 2017, compared to just two during his freshman season.

Lotti's presence has given the Badgers some peace of mind, to say the least. He's been a consistent kicker for UW since joining the team in 2016, and the Badgers might have to lean on him a bit more in 2017. Wisconsin's defense might have to go through a few bumps in the road as they adjust to an almost entirely new starting lineup, and getting a few extra yards for them to work with on a consistent basis would go a long way towards easing that transition.

This offensive player could take a big step forward in fall camp to claim a starting job.

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John Veldhuis covers Wisconsin football, basketball and recruiting for BadgerBlitz.com on the Rivals.com network. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnVeldhuis.