Key Wisconsin Badgers: No. 21 - Wide receiver Vinny Anthony II

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.

Vinny Anthony joined Wisconsin’s roster as a member of its 2022 class, having been recruited by Paul Chryst and company.

"They (Wisconsin coaches) think that I can help the team win games and help them take the next step as a program," Anthony told BadgerBlitz.com after signing in 2021. "They think I'm a great fit for them and they showed us who they really are. If I think that Wisconsin is the right fit for me, then they're going to be excited to have me.”

Anthony, a three-star recruit from Louisville, Kentucky, was a rather low-profile prospect who only earned Power Five offers from Wisconsin, Duke and Cincinnati.

Having been heavily recruited by both Wisconsin and Cincinnati, Anthony has the rare benefit of a relationship with Fickell and his staff that goes back multiple years.

Anthony’s greatest asset should be obvious as soon as he runs a go-route. He’s simply one of the fastest players on the entire team.

But what’s important is that he was able to use his field-stretching speed to consistently create separation during spring camp, which led to many of the spring’s biggest passing plays.

A persistent flaw with the offense last season was the receivers’ difficulties getting open. Anthony should help remedy that.

Yet as is expected with a player as fast as Anthony, he’s quite thin compared to most other receivers in the rotation.

The 183-pounder will likely never put on too much weight, but if he’s going to potentially start and play 500+ snaps, he has to be physically ready to last the season.

When speaking to Fickell and the position coaches during spring camp, there was rarely ever specific talk about rotations. But receivers coach Kenny Guiton didn’t shy away from saying Anthony was the frontrunner to start alongside Will Pauling and Bryson Green.

“I think Vinny Anthony has put himself in position to really take off and probably take over the spot right now if I had to (choose),” Guiton said.

When asked why, Guiton didn’t discuss any on-field assets, rather it was Anthony’s intangibles and “very consistent play” that stood out.

“Anything I’ve told him he needs to work on he does it and gets it fixed the next rep. Not the next day. It is the next rep.”

His coachability alone could end up being the difference maker for the starting job, but his skill set is a perfect match with the two starting receivers.

Pauling is the best on the team at getting open over the middle, Green is the stronger, more physical receiver on the outside and Anthony can stretch the defense vertically. It wouldn’t be a surprise at all if his name is at the top of the two-deep come September.

Few players on the entire roster have risen in significance over the last year as meteorically as Anthony. He began last season as a virtual unknown, then closed the season as one of the most important weapons in the offense

In the first nine games, Anthony played just 25 snaps and earned four targets. In the final four games counting the bowl game, he played 212 snaps, the second most on the team in that span behind Pauling, to go along with 14 targets.

He was never able to turn his sudden playing time into any real production, having finished the season with only 10 receptions and 99 yards, but he showed flashes of a player that could be the key to opening up the offense.

Anthony's rise continued and was validated during the spring, as he put himself in a prime position to earn a starting job. But regardless of whether or not he technically starts, his speed is something that this offense won’t be able to thrive without.

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