Key Wisconsin Badgers: No. 26 - Inside Linebacker Jake Chaney

Wisconsin's 2023 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.

Jake Chaney, the ninth member of Wisconsin's 2021 recruiting class, committed to the Badgers just as the COVID-19 pandemic picked up in March of 2020. Chaney joined inside linebacker Bryan Sanborn as committed inside linebackers in the cycle.

"I didn't want to miss my chance at Wisconsin," Chaney told BadgerBlitz.com prior to his commitment. "They have great coaches, great players and I love the area around Madison. It's a place where I can thrive and I can't wait to get going.

"The coaches told me I'm like Chris Orr but a little bit bigger. With him graduating, they want someone to come in and be the type of player he was at Wisconsin. They think I can be like him, which is a big compliment."

The former three-star prospect went with the Badgers over offers from Florida State, Minnesota, Iowa State, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt and Indiana, among others.

"I was looking pretty hard at Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa State, Louisville and Vanderbilt," Chaney said. "But I just felt Wisconsin was the right fit. The schools in Florida didn't really recruit me too hard, so I'm fine going out of state."

The Florida native saw the field immediately in his first year, appearing in nine games in 2021. However, all 103 snaps during his freshman campaign came on special teams. Heading into his second year in Madison, Chaney lost out to Jordan Turner and Maema Njongmeta in a fall camp battle to earn a starting role. He, howeever, remained a consistent piece on the defense and logged 269 snaps this past season, the third most by an inside linebacker.

Chaney found his stride during a three-game stretch in the middle of the year against Northwestern, Purdue and Maryland. In those contests, he saw his most snaps of his career with 52, 40 and 35, respectively, according to Pro Football Focus. Against the Wildcats and Boilermakers, the 5-foot-11, 229-pound junior racked up 10 total tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, seven pressures and came away with the first sack of his career.

Tallying four tackles for loss, 10 pressures, one sack and one interception, Chaney displayed an ability to be disruptive in the front seven. Now the next step will be to find some consistency, especially with a spot in the two-deep open from the start. Chaney didn't see consistent playing time this past season until Week 5 against Illinois.

After Chaney missed the second week of spring ball while nursing a minor foot injury, defensive coordinator Mike Tressel deployed him consistently with Turner and Njongmeta when the defense rolled out a 3-3-5 look. An alignment with three inside linebackers became a favorite for Tressel to go with in a dollar package, which included six defensive backs.

"He is a good player - he's a (No. 1) one," Tressel said of Chaney. "You can start saying, 'wait a second how are there more than two ones?' He's a one.

"He's really impressed me because he has the ability to be really heavy handed where he shocks offensive linemen and you see them stumble back two yards. And the next play, you see him slip them and make a play in the backfield. Having the ability to do both of those things and having a feel for when to use each of those tools is really impressive so he's a one."

With the staff emphasizing a desire to simply get the 11 best players on the field, an alignment with three inside linebackers could be rolled out often. If the explosive linebacker can make a leap in his third year it could go a long way, especially with Turner, a projected starter, currently suspended.

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