Wisconsin's 2024 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 Luke Fickell's squad this year.

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

Ohio-native Darryl Peterson joined the Badgers as the 12th player of their lauded 2021 class that finished as the 14th highest-rated in the country, also featuring players like Hunter Wohler, Ricardo Hallman and Braelon Allen.

He committed in June of 2020 as a three-star prospect before bumping up another star by the end of the year. The Ohio native also finished as the 246th player in the 2021 class and top-10 in both his state (10) and position (9).

"I told the coaches yesterday on a Zoom meeting," Peterson told BadgerBlitz.com after committing. "I almost shed a tear when I heard the stuff they were saying about me and how I fit at Wisconsin.

"It was me, Coach (Joe) Rudolph, Coach (Bobby) April and Coach (Paul) Chryst, and you could feel how happy they were even though we were on Zoom."

Besides Wisconsin, the schools most aggressive in their pursuit of him were Michigan State, Clemson, West Virginia and Alabama.

"Being around the guys and being around the coaches, it just felt like family and it felt like home,” Peterson said.

Peterson eased his way into the rotation in 2022, then became one of the team’s most important players last season as he and C.J. Goetz were the only trustworthy edge rushers and thus each had massive workloads.

Whether or not he seemed prepared for such a role depended on the week. There were stretches of the season where he was indispensable, and others where it was easy to forget he was out there, especially near the end of the year.

Peterson’s decline in play during the final stretch of the season paralleled the team’s. He recorded 25 pressures in the first eight games, in which they began 5-3, then just five in the final five games of the year, going 2-3.

He became difficult to trust. But still, he’s high on the list and high in the rotation because of what he’s ultimately capable of.

At 6-foot-1, 247 pounds, he’s not the biggest player at his position, but he’s maximized his athleticism for his body type. Not many players his size can whip around 300-pound tackles as easily or often.

It ultimately speaks to Peterson’s skill and experience that there were so many great additions to his room and he’s still at the top of the rotation. Notably, the Badgers brought in Leon Lowery and John Pius, two skilled yet unproven transfers.

Early on in spring camp, it appeared as if the newbies would push Peterson out of the starting lineup. They stole the show at practice almost everyday while the veteran’s consistency problems continued.

But unlike the regular season, Peterson came alive in the second half of spring. It was he who was stacking great practices on top of one another. The final weeks of spring only further clarified what we already know — at his best, there are few Badgers harder to ignore.

Looking too deeply at the outside linebacker rotation is ultimately unnecessary. It’s looking like three players will rotate at the top, perhaps a fourth if you count Aaron Witt, but Peterson will no-doubt crack that top three.

Last season, he still played even when his productivity dropped for long stretches, because the coaches didn’t have anyone else to turn to. That’s not the case anymore. If Peterson struggles to make an impact this time around, the coaches won’t care how long he’s been in Madison.

“For guys like myself and C.J. last year, and even Jeff Pietrowski, we took all the reps. So there were games when C.J. played 70 reps a game and it kind of hurt us in the fourth quarter,” Peterson said during spring camp.

“If guys are fresh, there’s no excuse anymore.”

As a redshirt sophomore in 2023, Peterson’s workload finally matched his athletic potential. It’s time for his production to reach that level as well.

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