News trickled out on Monday morning that UW associate head coach/offensive line coach Joe Rudolph would move on to coach the offensive line at Virginia Tech. Football Scoop first reported the expected hiring, and the veteran assistant discussed the move with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Wisconsin State Journal.

Several former Badgers linemen took to social media after news officially broke on Monday to discuss the impact of the former line coach, who now wraps up his second tenure as a Wisconsin assistant. Among those include the Los Angeles Rams' David Edwards, Green Bay Packers' Cole Van Lanen, outgoing right tackle Logan Bruss, along with David Moorman and Jake Maxwell.

In late December, reports from Football Scoop and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel stated the ACC program and new head coach Brent Pry was focusing on Rudolph for its offensive line coach position. The news was not official by any stretch, but particular linemen were asked about their teacher and mentor during player availability.

BadgerBlitz.com spoke with Bruss and true freshman Nolan Rucci alone on Dec. 21, while the site and WOZN's Zach Heilprin talked with first-year player Riley Mahlman in a joint discussion on the same day.

Questions to and answers from the players are shown for transparency, with both being lightly edited for clarity.

Over the course of your time, you've had Joe Rudolph as an offensive line coach. What have you learned from him over the course of your time, and how would you describe his coaching style?

"I think he really does a good job of understanding the players individually and kind of what makes them tick. I know I always got frustrated with him because he knew exactly what to say to kind of get the best out of me, even if it made me frustrated at times. But I'd say he kind of instilled this philosophy of being the hardest workers, no matter what. If we had to stay late to get a hard look down, he's willing to put in that time, and he kind of expects it out of us. So that's just kind of become the standard of trying to outwork everybody.

"He just does a good job of staying the course even when things were kind of rough towards the beginning of the season. He just did a good job of kind of steading that ship and sending us on the right path, saying no matter what happened last week, we got to approach things the same or even harder this week. Just keep working and soon results will happen, and I feel like they did in that stretch of the season. I thought finally the work started to pay off, so that was really fun.

"A great guy to play for. I've enjoyed my time with him a lot. Meeting him in high school, I think I came here to a camp when I was 16, and he was right there. He's the same guy. Just being able to kind of grow up with him as the coach has been really fun. I really enjoyed it."

What does Rudy mean to you?

"Gosh, Rudy really means so much, just the way he cares for you and everything. Really awesome, standout guy. He's so much a big reason why I came here. He's a great coach. He's just doing his thing on the field. So I think he's definitely helped me grow and as a player, a person, and my mentality has gotten a lot through him. He's kind of showing me, 'Hey, you have to be like this. You have to be hard-nosed,' so he definitely toughened me up mentally a little bit.

When it comes to Rudy, even on the recruiting trail, just how did he sell you on the Wisconsin offensive line and just how instrumental was he in you coming here?

"I mean it's not easy to sell someone on the Wisconsin offensive line. [smiles during first sentence] Great tradition. Great team, great program, hard-nosed football. Just the tradition here is unreal, and just the school in general, I love school here. Love the people around here, love the coaches, love the players.

"So he didn't really sell it. He just showed its true side, and I just fell in love with it. So he didn't do much selling. It was just showing me, and I fell in love with it."

What have you learned from Joe Rudolph, and what did you learn from Rudy and just what he's done as a coach and teaching you in the first year?

“Rudy's just such a wealth of information as far as the footwork side of it, hand placement, and all those things are super important, especially in the run game. Pass setting, too, there's a lot of stuff that I've learned. Even like you're leaning on a pass set ... you’re doing one thing, so it's all these little mistakes that can happen, and you're just trying to have a perfect rep every single time. Learning to do that has been tough, but it's been a really good process.”

I know that you've talked about him before in the past, but just on the recruiting trail, how is he and how did he help you get here?

"Rudy was great. I think one of the things that I appreciated the most is when, I think I remember, I must have been in eighth grade or something like that when Hayden [Rucci] was still doing his recruiting visits. He kind of sat me down on my own, just in the o-line office.

"Just him and I, we went through some film, and I didn't really know a whole lot of what he was talking about at the time, but it was really good to kind of get the information. I think just him showing that he cares about me and that he really wants me to be here, and so I think from very early on, Rudy's just been such a real dude and was really instrumental in my recruiting process."

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