Wisconsin's 2022 football season is right around the corner, so BadgerBlitz.com ranked the top 30 players who we think will be the keys to success for Paul Chryst's squad this year.

Playing time, past performance and positional depth all factored into our staff rankings.

This offseason, John Torchio seamlessly moved into a full-time starter's role at safety and became a leader, not only in the position room but on the unit as a whole. The redshirt senior and former walk-on consistently saw the field as a reserve behind Scott Nelson and Collin Wilder. Over the past three seasons, Torchio has played in 26 games with four starts, three of which came this past season when Wilder was sidelined due to injury.

"He’s always had very good instincts," defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard. "Some guys really struggle with looking at the quarterback and feeling out timing and things like that. That’s always been one of his strong suits."

Torchio worked the first-team defense all spring and continued to make plays. With Travian Blaylock going down and likely to miss the 2022 season, Torchio easily has the most experience of those in the safety room. With that, Leonhard noted that Torchio is "playing like a veteran" in the spring. In the role, he has led meetings with safeties on off days and asked guys to bring in five questions they might have.

"It can be the most simple question, but let’s just hammer the details out," Torchio said.

Torchio has proven he can be a playmaker when asked to step in. To this point, he's handled the new responsibility that comes with being a veteran, but he's still new to the territory. The former walk-on mentioned the role is a bit out of his comfort zone and something he's still getting used to.

"The great thing about this upcoming team, I think, is there are guys who are aware that leadership has to step up, and they knew that from Day 1 when they came back for this new team," Wilder said on March 5. "It sounds like there are a lot of guys who are stepping up right away. John Torchio is one of them as being one of those leaders. It's really cool to see because he's always been one of those guys that's just kind of like, 'Nah, I don't really want to say anything. That's all you. Y'all got it.'

"Now he is one of those guys with a voice and he's bringing guys along with him, and he's helping guys who are new and trying to adapt into the program. I think that's awesome, especially coming from, I guess, I would consider 'Torch' a guy who was part of that starting lineup because of how much he played last year. So it's really cool to see a guy who was kind of just getting into a role this past year. Now, he's going to jump into not only a starting role, but he's going to jump into a huge leadership role. And so I think John, my boy 'Torch,' I think he's definitely gonna be one that's gonna provide a lot of leadership in the back end."

On the field, Torchio will have a new partner in the secondary with sophomore Hunter Wohler projected to start next to him. Following the injury to Blaylock, Wohler took the majority of the reps with the first-team defense. Wohler and Torchio will have to build chemistry in the backend after Wisconsin's defense had a tandem that played a ton of football next to each other in Wilder and Nelson.

Similar to others on the defensive side of the ball, Torchio will now be asked to assume a much larger role in 2022. Leonhard has traditionally liked to play four or five safeties in a game but may not have that option given the lack of depth in the room. Torchio will likely be a workhorse at safety and be on the field often.

"It’s been big and I think I saw starting in Day 1 of the winter program," Leonhard said. "You see It happen all the time where they waited, they kind of deferred to the older guys in the group and I think Torch is one of them that is one of them that I saw much more vocal with the entire team, the defense and with the position group."

After tying for the team lead in interceptions and now heading into a season where Torchio will be a full-time starter for the first time in his career, expect to see a leap in production from the 6-foot-1, 208-pound safety. With a talented front seven in front of him, Torchio will be asked to continue to make plays on the back end.

"He knows how to paint a picture to a quarterback and understands route concepts and timing. It’s fun because not everyone has that initial knack," Leonhard said of Torchio. "Some guys are more man coverage guys. Some guys are more physical guys and tacklers and blitzes and stuff like that. But the more guys you can have on your team that can look at the quarterback and make things happen, the more turnovers you’re going to create."

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