Friday, June 27, 2008

Welcome new Badgers

The football program has added six new recruits lately, filling out the class at a variety of positions. I used to get a lot more excited about this part of the college football experience, but not as much any more. We could sit around gnashing our teeth about all these three-star guys (why aren't we getting more four- and five-star guys?!?!?!?) but for the past 15-plus years the program has been built on three-star guys who have worked to improve and been coached up to an elite level. Anyway, here are the latest soon-to-be Badgers:

Montee Ball, RB, Wentzville, Mo.
He's 5-11, 200 pounds, the right size for a back. He's rushed for about 5,000 yards in his sophomore and junior years, and has about 4.5 speed. We beat Kansas and Missouri for him. Scout has him as the 48th best back in his class.

Zac Matthias, OL, Hemlock, Mich.
Typical of the guys we recruit to play the line - 6-6, 305. We beat Michigan State and some MAC schools for him. Read a quote from his high school coach who said that if Lloyd Carr was still at Michigan, Matthias would have been holding out for an offer from them, but since RichRod is at Ann Arbor playing touch football, we got him.

Jon Lechner, OL, Omaha
Another 6-6 kid, primarily a run blocker. We beat out home state Nebraska for this guy. Apparently there's been some conflicting reports or wavering here, as Lechner's name has disappeared from the commit list.

Chris Borland, LB, Kettering, Ohio
Don't know much about this dude, but he's from a football hotbed, and I'm always for taking kids from Ohio. A linebacker from the Columbus area, doesn't seem like you can go wrong with that.

Brian Wozniak, TE, Loveland, Ohio
Another Ohio boy, I love it! He's 6-5, 225, already pretty good size for the position, and it stands to reason he'll grow. Looks like we beat Louisville, Maryland, and MAC schools for this guy.

Travis Frederick, OL, Walworth, Wis.
A Wisconsin kid! Travis is a 6-5, 302-pound tackle, the kind of kid we've built the program on over the years. He's also a really good student, over a 4.0 GPA, so you figure he's a good character guy.

Gotta wonder why the rash of recent commitments. Most likely offers coming after summer camps. Or are the coaches just pushing to get their recruiting done so they can spend the rest of the summer playing golf?

3 comments:

Matt said...

Is it just me or is this recruiting class filling more quickly than normal?

That said, it seems like a very solid class thus far. Surprised that I don't see much d-line help but perhaps that is coming?

Coach Scott Tappa said...

I was thinking the same thing, per the last paragraph in the post. Maybe just a shift in philosophy by the coaching staff to wrap it up before the fall. The later you go in the recruiting season, the guys who tend to remain available are either higher- or lower-tier recruits; we don't have a shot at many of the former and don't want the latter, so we might as well take the guys who know they want to be in Madison in summer.

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