Every year, Rivals.com ranks prospects and recruiting classes. But continuing today, BadgerBlitz.com is looking at Wisconsin's cycles over a 10-year period and ranking them against each other.
Specifically, we're looking at the classes that UW signed from 2007 to 2016 and ranking them based on what players did in college. There's not enough evidence to judge the classes of 2017, 2018 or 2019 yet, so we cut off the rankings there and counted back 10 years.
In order to get a more well-rounded perspective, BadgerBlitz.com enlisted the help of former staff writers John Veldhuis and Jon Gorman; @zonemadison (96.7FM 1670AM) Sports Director Zach Heilprin; and current writers Jon McNamara and Benjamin Worgull. Each was asked to assign a point total (1 to 10) to each class, with 10 being the highest and 1 being lowest.
Today, we continue with No. 2 on the rankings: The Class of 2013.
Total Points: 40
No. 10: 2012 | No. 9: 2007 | No. 8: 2010 | No. 7: 2011 | No. 6: 2015 | No. 5: 2016 | No. 4: 2014 | No. 3: 2008 |
Top recruit: The third Watt brother to play for the Badgers, T.J Watt, a converted tight end, was a first-team All-America by ESPN and Sports Illustrated as a redshirt junior. During his final year at UW, Watt was consensus first-team All-Big Ten selection and started all 14 games at outside linebacker. He skipped his senior season and entered 2017 NFL Draft, where he was selected by Pittsburgh in the first round.
Best surprise: Former walk-on Jack Cichy started just 11 games at Wisconsin due to injuries, but he still racked up 120 tackles and 6.5 sacks for the Badgers. He was selected in the sixth round of the 2018 NFL Draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Biggest bust: There were very few busts in this class. But if someone has to fill this space, it's probably Keelon Brookins, who was the highest-rated corner Wisconsin ever singed at that time. Injuries, unfortunately, were a big part of both his high school and collegiate career.
Wanted to see more from: From this topic, I'll substitute "more" for "something." Jack Keeler and Matt Miller obviously fit the bill, but I'll go with Matt Hubley, a projected starter at safety before he was forced to step away from football.
Rivals.com class recruiting rank: No. 57
States represented (11): Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Kansas, Florida, Illinois, California, Arizona and Iowa.
Decommitted: Tiqeuntion Coleman (Arkansas), Scott Orndoff (Pittsburgh), Marcus Ball (Arizona State), Darius Latham (Indiana) and Tyler Foreman (UCLA).
Transferred: Keelon Brookins (Northern Iowa), Jakarrie Washington (UMass-Dartmouth).
*Donnell Vercher (academics) never enrolled at Wisconsin
NFL Draft Picks: Troy Fumagalli, Jack Cichy, Leon Jacobs
First-Team All-Americans: Watt
LAST THOUGHT
The Class of 2013 was certainly an interesting one for the Wisconsin Badgers. Many of the players were recruited by and committed to Bret Bielema and his staff. But when he left to take the Arkansas job in December of 2012, Gary Andersen was tasked with not only hanging onto the current commits, but putting the finishing touches on this cycle.
"Bielema's departure has a chance to devastate Wisconsin's recruiting in the short term because it was so sudden, so unexpected," Rivals.com Midwest recruiting analyst Josh Helmholdt said at the time. "The Wisconsin commits I have spoken with since the news came out are just in shock. I expect a larger number of de-commitments than we see in an average coaching change."
Andersen hung on to a big chunk of this group and added a few more key pieces down the stretch. The in-state class proved to be strong, with Watt, Chikwe Obasih, Alec James, Jazz Peavy and Austin Ramesh all developing into big contributors during their time in Madison. Cichy, Troy Fumagalli and Joe Ferguson were allso great gets as preferred walk-ons. Fans only got a small taster of the JUCO flavor in this class before Andersen ramped things up the following year.
All things considered, this was a very good class for Wisconsin.
