Nowakowski on Wisconsin commitment: "It’s been a dream of mine to go there"

During the course of his recruitment, Riley Nowakowski racked up no less than 15 scholarship offers.

And when it came down to his final decision, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound in-state senior from Marquette University was focused on three options: preferred walk-on opportunities from Wisconsin and Stanford, and a full-ride from New Mexico State.

Earlier this month, Nowakowski, an all-state selection this past fall, announced he would be staying close to home.

"I’ve grown up around Wisconsin my whole life," Nowakowski told BadgerBlitz.com. "Both my parents are alumni and my sister is a sophomore there.

"I’ve always loved the Badgers and we always had them on our TV when I was growing up. So, naturally, it’s been a dream of mine to go there."

As a senior, Nowakowski, who also had offers from Ivy League universities such as Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton and Yale, had 126 tackles, three sacks and two interceptions. He also served as the Hilltoppers' top running back and return man on special teams.

"I committed on Friday when Coach (Chris) Haering told me he’d be coming to my school. He seemed pretty surprised but definitely excited," Nowakowski said. "I don’t think he expected me to commit that day but he was definitely happy to hear it and was super excited to have me on the team.

"Wisconsin is a great engineering school and I intend to major in engineering. So all of that and the coaching staff is amazing and the culture there is great. The culture made it feel like a second home - all the guys are really good kids."

Nowakowski joins a 2020 preferred walk-on class that also includes Sean Timmis, his teammate at Marquette, along with Duncan McKinley, Jack Van Dyke, Ross Gengler, Amaun Williams and Kerry Kodanko. He could play inside or outside linebacker at UW.

"To be quite honest, I don’t know," Nowakowski said when asked about his future position. "They talked about both inside and outside to me and Coach (Paul) Chryst said that both the coaches would like to have me play their position.

"It feels great to have made my decision. It’s nice to not have to worry about talking to other schools or responding to a bunch of coaches and taking calls all the time. It’s nice to have an answer when people ask me where I’m going, too."

Wisconsin inked 19 scholarship prospects during December's early signing period. Four-star running back Jalen Berger is expected to do the same in February.