MADISON, Wis. – There is an air of confidence around Wisconsin’s wide receivers as they prepare for the 2017 season. It stands out for a group that’s relatively young, featuring two seniors and seven scholarship underclassmen. But the Badgers feel like they have enough playmakers in their wide receiver corps to give the UW passing game the kind of balance that they haven’t seen in Madison in a long time.

It’s been six years since the Badgers had more than one wide receiver finish the year with more than 500 receiving yards. Nick Toon and Jared Abbrederis were the last wide receiver duo to do it – in 2011, back when Russell Wilson helped UW score 44.1 points per game. They’ve found ways to get the job done since then, primarily by relying on stand-out tight ends, but for the most part over the last few years the Badgers have depended on one wide receiver to make plays down the field – specifically Alex Erickson from 2014-2015, and Abbrederis from 2012-2013.

But the Badgers will break that streak if they get their way in 2017. Because while targets and receptions might be a little hard to come by in Wisconsin’s pro-style offense, this year’s group of wide receivers believes they have what it takes to earn the trust of quarterback Alex Hornibrook and become dependable options when the Badgers do take to the air.

“I think all of the receivers in the room, not just the guys who are starting or playing, I feel like everybody can make a huge contribution. We all bring our own little talents,” sophomore wide receiver A.J. Taylor said Wednesday. “I for sure think that it won’t be a one-man show this year. I mean, that’s not how any of us want it. I don’t think Jazz or George (Rushing) or Quintez (Cephus) or me or anybody – I know nobody wants it to be a one-man show. We all want to have some fun.”

There should definitely be room for more than senior Jazz Peavy to get in on the action, after he led the team with 43 catches for 635 yards as a junior last year. On average, Paul Chryst’s last eight offenses produced three wide receivers who topped 200 yards in a season – a No. 2 option that has averaged 584 receiving yards per year, and a third option that averages about 15 catches per year.

How the rotation will shake out is still up in the air, though. And with senior George Rushing still sidelined with a leg injury it seems like the second-year players like Taylor and Quintez Cephus will get a chance to prove they can make plays.

“Last year, speaking kind of for me, Quintez (Cephus) and Kendric (Pryor), we were all young, you know? We were young guys, we were inexperienced, and there was a lot of just running around kind of like chickens with our heads chopped off. We were just everywhere,” Taylor said. “We’re so much more comfortable (now). We can just play the game and just relax, and we can play fast and know what we’re doing.”

Taylor said he’s still been getting first-team reps this fall along with Cephus, who established himself in the spring and again in fall camp as UW’s likely No. 2 behind Peavy this fall, in part because he has shown he can make plays down the field.

“I try to use my ability to go get the ball,” Cephus said Wednesday. “Just giving the quarterback … making him be able to trust and have faith in me that I can go and get the ball, or if he ever needs me to bail him out, he can always throw it up and I’ll go get it.”

As of now it seems like Cephus, Taylor, and the rest have earned Alex Hornibrook’s trust. And if they can deliver on their expectations, it could give Wisconsin’s offense an extra dimension that they’ve been missing.

“There’s a lot of them, and really we’ve been working since January so honestly I feel great throwing with every single one of them,” Hornibrook said Wednesday. “It’s a different relationship with each guy, but I feel great throwing with all of them.”

“That’s big to have those guys you can trust. And it’s basically you trust them to be in the spot they’re supposed to be and you trust them to make a play and I feel that confidence with a lot of our guys.”

--

John Veldhuis covers Wisconsin football, basketball and recruiting for BadgerBlitz.com on the Rivals.com network. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnVeldhuis.