Wisconsin football recruiting: Key 2023 Badgers targets and where things stand with each prospect (2024)

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s football program enters February with one committed prospect in its 2023 recruiting class after linebacker Tyler Jansey pledged to the Badgers on Friday. But with scholarship offers out to roughly 70 uncommitted high school players and several others still being evaluated, Wisconsin has only begun to formulate the roadmap to how its next recruiting class will take shape.

As the 2022 cycle reaches its conclusion with the February signing period this week, The Athletic takes an in-depth look ahead at some of the top targets on Wisconsin’s 2023 board, with comments from their high school coaches.

LB Tackett Curtis

6-foot-2, 218 pounds, Many High School (Many, La.)

Four-star | No. 5 linebacker in 247Sports Composite

How much does Wisconsin outside linebackers coach Bobby April value Curtis and the skill set he could bring to the Badgers? Many High School football coach Jess Curtis, who is Tackett’s uncle, said April has made five in-person appearances to see Tackett since the fall.

April visited for a regular season game, a semifinal playoff game and then returned to watch Tackett in the state championship (both playoff games occurred in December, after Wisconsin completed its regular season). During the most recent contact period in January, April visited the high school with head coach Paul Chryst. He came back two Mondays ago and brought defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard with him.

“Coach April has done a great job,” Jess said. “He’s been on him. We really reached out to Wisconsin just because Tackett likes what they’re about and their culture and the way their program is structured. Coach April watched his film and ever since has been on him like a heat-seeking missile.”

Wisconsin extended Tackett a scholarship offer in late April, and he subsequently visited campus in June and returned in October to watch a game at Camp Randall Stadium against Michigan. Tackett’s offer list of 45 schools is monstrous and indicative of his game-changing ability. Some of the schools to have offered him include Ohio State, USC, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Florida State, Florida, LSU, Clemson, Georgia, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Oklahoma, Penn State, Oregon and Texas A&M.

Tackett finished his junior season with 128 tackles and four interceptions to help his team reach the state championship for a third straight season and earn all-state honors. He picked up the Class 2A outstanding defensive player of the year award for a second consecutive season.

Tackett plays quarterback in a run-based offense because the team needed a leader with athleticism. He hands the ball off for most plays but does run outside the pocket and gained nearly 500 yards on the ground last season. He also returned kicks and punts for his team.

Jess said he has never coached a player who possesses the type of physicality that Tackett brings every game and noted his nephew is rare because he also plays with great speed.

“You turn his highlight film on and you’re going to see about 20 plays of him running through people,” Jess said. “I mean, not just hitting them and tackling them. I’m talking about annihilation. So you love that physicality. In Big Ten football, you’re going to have a lot of that. He does that well. Wisconsin likes the ability that he can run and flip his hips. Coach April likes him and thinks he can play all the positions there. But they really like him at probably that field backer position.”

May’s football team runs the 3-3-5 stack defense that lines up three linebackers directly behind the defensive linemen and is designed to create flexibility and confuse offenses. It’s the same defense that Rocky Long ran while head coach at New Mexico, when he used future NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Brian Urlacher as a free safety in the system.

“We use Tackett in the same type of mold to get more bang for our buck with him being there, being able to play sideline to sideline,” Jess said. “It’s an easy transition to linebacker play. It helps him play in space, yet it also sinks him in the box.

“In the state championship, he was guarding a 100-meter champion from the opposing team and on that play, he was in zero man coverage and covered him well. He gets an assortment of different types of things asked from him in that defense. But it’s the best defense for us to get the most out of him as well.”

Where Wisconsin stands

“He’s not one to put out there, ‘My top eight, my top 12,’” Jess said. “He’s a different kid. He’s old school, throwback. He loves Wisconsin. That was his first weekend visit (when) he went there. He’s been there for a game. He’s going back there for an official. They’re in that top group, right there at the top, if not at the top. I know they’re in a great position with that.”

WR Justin Marshall

5-foot-11, 175 pounds, Merrillville High School (Merrillville, Ind.)

Three-star | No. 93 wide receiver per 247Sports (unrated in 247Sports Composite)

Marshall is a recent addition to Wisconsin’s offer list in the 2023 class but is someone who has continued to gain recruiting traction over the last month. He has earned offers the past few weeks from Kent State, Miami (Ohio), Boston College, Indiana and Purdue. Marshall’s best attribute is his speed. He ran a 10.88-second 100-meter dash as a sophom*ore.

“Whenever he gets in open space, nobody is ever able to catch him,” Merrillville football coach Brad Seiss said. “But along with him being really fast, just good balance. He kind of feasted in getting great yardage after the catch and breaking a tackle or two and then really turning small little short throws into big plays. So he’s just really good at keeping balanced and turning something small into something big.”

Marshall finished his junior season with 52 receptions for 1,249 yards and a program-record 18 touchdowns. He carried the ball 55 times for 653 yards with seven touchdowns. During the season, Marshall played running back, lined up as a Wildcat quarterback and often caught short passes in the slot so he could make plays in space.

Seiss said Wisconsin has a good reputation at Merrillville High. Wisconsin heavily recruited Merrillville’s Kenneth Grant, a defensive lineman in the 2021 class who went to Michigan. Seiss said Grant came away impressed with the staff despite picking the Wolverines. Wisconsin coaches invited Marshall to a practice during bowl prep December 11 to offer him a scholarship in person.

“You could tell they just didn’t want to be like, ‘Hey, this is Wisconsin, we want to offer you,’” Seiss said. “They wanted him to meet the receiver coach, meet Coach Chryst and show how serious they were by doing it in person. The personal touch in recruiting is definitely important.”

Wisconsin offensive line coach Bob Bostad, who handles prospects in the Chicago area, initially recruited Marshall, and receivers coach Alvis Whitted has since taken over the recruitment. Seiss said Whitted and Chryst visited the high school in January to check in on Marshall.

Although Marshall has primarily been recruited as a wide receiver, Seiss said Michigan running backs coach Mike Hart is recruiting him as a running back. Seiss said Marshall would have a bigger role at tailback in his senior season because it’s the easiest way to get the ball in his hands for more snaps. As for whether he would be a slot receiver or capable of playing on the outside for Wisconsin, that remains to be seen.

“I don’t think they’ve really gotten that far yet,” Seiss said. “As they’ve recruited him, the biggest thing they’ve talked about is how they really like the things that he can do after he makes the catch. They’ve just kind of identified him as a really explosive player that they hold in pretty high regard and are trying to recruit really hard to Wisconsin.”

Where Wisconsin stands

“Any time you’re the first Power 5 program to offer the scholarship, I think he holds that in very high regard,” Seiss said. “He’s got a grandmother that lives in Appleton. So the family connection would definitely help. Just knowing that they were the first to really pull the trigger and take the gamble on an offer of a guy, kids see that, they like that. It’s always good to be the first school to really value the talent that he has.”

RB Dylan Edwards

5-foot-9, 165 pounds, Derby High School (Derby, Kan.)

Three-star | No. 23 running back in 247Sports Composite

Wisconsin didn’t land a true running back in its 2022 recruiting class, although athlete Cade Yacamelli could wind up filling that role. The Badgers have offers out to seven tailbacks in the 2023 class, including Edwards, who is a dynamic threat that can turn on the afterburners in open space. Edwards has more than 20 scholarship offers, including from Big Ten schools Illinois, Indiana, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin. He picked up an offer from Oklahoma last week.

“It all starts with his speed,” Derby football coach Brandon Clark said. “But I think as a coach, just seeing what he does, it’s his vision. He really knows how to hit the cutback. He really knows when he needs one yard and it’s not there, how to put his shoulder pads down and get that extra yard. He just does a great job. He never turns over the ball, either.

“Outside of his skill set, he’s a great teammate, too. He’s very selfless. If he ever scores a touchdown or ever does an interview, he always talks about his offensive line. He’s brought up the right way and just a good kid.”

Derby is a powerhouse football program in Kansas — one that beat Badgers quarterback Graham Mertz’s Blue Valley North team in the 2018 state championship to complete an undefeated season. Since the 2018 season, Derby is 46-3. Edwards has been a big reason the team has continued to play at a high level. He finished his junior season with 2,603 yards rushing and 40 touchdowns. Clark said Edwards averaged 13 yards per carry, 39 yards per kickoff return and 29 yards per punt return.

“So when he touched the ball, it was usually a big play,” Clark said. “There would be a lot of games where he touched the ball maybe seven times and scored four or five touchdowns. He’s very dynamic with the ball.”

One such example came during Derby’s 52-14 victory against Maize South. Edwards scored six touchdowns, including on his first five touches of the game. He scored on an 80-yarder on the first play from scrimmage and amassed 234 yards rushing on his first four carries alone. Clark said Chryst recently visited the high school to continue recruiting one of the top tailbacks in Kansas.

“They like his speed, his intangibles, the stuff that you don’t see on the football field,” Clark said. “He’s a leader, he’s a good kid, he’s solid, he loves the game of football. I think once they got to know him and met him, they’re like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got to offer this guy.’ Coach Chryst came out and watched him in the weight room and I think they saw how strong and tough he was.”

Edwards’ father, Leon, played running back at Kansas State under Bill Snyder from 1992-94. Clark said Edwards has drawn comparisons to a couple other Kansas State running backs: Darren Sproles and Deuce Vaughn, both of whom were listed at 5-foot-6. Although Edwards is a few inches taller, he possesses the same type of explosiveness as those players.

Sproles finished his four-year Kansas State career with 4,979 yards rushing and 45 touchdowns. Vaughn has rushed for 2,034 yards with 25 touchdowns in two seasons for the Wildcats and was a consensus All-American last season. Clark, who played wide receiver at Kansas State and was teammates with Sproles for one season, said Edwards stacks up favorably.

“Pound for pound, he’s probably the strongest guy on our team with how much he lifts,” Edwards said. “He’s very explosive.”

Where Wisconsin stands

“I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I think relationships are huge to him,” Clark said. “It’s not about the school. It’s not about who’s selling him on playing time or anything like that. It’s about the relationships that he has. He’s a good judge of character.”

QB Avery Johnson

6-foot-2, 170 pounds, Maize High School (Maize, Kan).

Four-star | No. 11 quarterback in 247Sports Composite

Johnson is the top quarterback target on Wisconsin’s board as of now in the 2023 class, although the Badgers have plenty of competition for his services. Johnson holds 19 scholarship offers, including from Arizona, Auburn, Florida State, Kansas, Kansas State, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Tennessee and Virginia Tech, and he hasn’t listed a favorite school. Johnson finished his junior season completing 162 of 296 passes (54.7 percent) for 2,549 yards with 20 touchdowns and six interceptions. He also carried 146 times for 1,080 yards and 22 touchdowns.

“He can do it all,” Maize football coach Gary Guzman said. “He’s a double-threat quarterback. I think he would like to probably be known more for his passing. But he has the ability to run and run well and we used him as a running quarterback as well, not just as a passer.

“But he can do both very well. He’s got speed. You know what they say about speed. Speed kills. He’s got great accuracy and great velocity on his football. He can throw the short pass. He can throw the deep pass. He can throw on the run. He can throw just setting up in the pocket. He can do whatever we pretty much ask him to.”

Johnson is a three-sport athlete who also plays basketball and baseball. He led his basketball team in scoring as a sophom*ore and helped Maize finish 23-2 with a state championship. Guzman said that despite Johnson’s ability as a basketball player, he has put his college focus on football. Johnson, who went 9-2 as a sophom*ore starting quarterback, went 11-3 last season and led his team to the state title game.

His team trailed Kapaun Mt. Carmel 21-14 with two minutes remaining in the state semifinal game, when Johnson led Maize on a touchdown drive and converted the two-point conversion to squeak out a 22-21 victory. In a state championship game loss to Mill Valley, Johnson accounted for 335 yards of total offense and two touchdowns.

The only other quarterbacks Wisconsin has offered scholarships to in the class are Brayden Dorman (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Cameron Edge (Smyrna, Del.). However, Edge is considered a Maryland lean and Dorman didn’t include Wisconsin in his list of top five schools that he released in December, instead picking Oregon State, Colorado, Arizona, Mississippi State and Iowa State. Chryst visited Johnson in January to continue to express his interest in the prospect.

“They just like what they’ve seen so far on film,” Guzman said. “Because if you watch his highlights, he’s pretty amazing the things that he shows. I think they like him as an athlete, the fact that he’s a multi-sport guy and that he plays all three sports at a high level. If you watch him play other sports, you go, ‘Wow, this kid is pretty amazing.’ And his love is football, that’s what he wants to do. That’s what he works on.”

Where Wisconsin stands

“I’ve talked to a couple of the coaches,” Guzman said. “I get a good impression. I feel like they’re genuinely interested in him. Any time the head coach shows up at your place, that means a lot. I’ve been coaching for a long time and I’ve had some good players. And I’ve had coaches come through. When the head coach shows up, that tells you that they definitely are interested.”

(Top photo of Justin Marshall courtesy of Tom DiGrispino)