Wisconsin received another football commitment of sorts as All-State LB Craig Cummings from Wilmot High School is going to walk-on this fall and play for Wisconsin.
1999 Football Commits
2000 Football Commits
2001 Football Commits
2002 Verbal Commits
2002 Badger Football Recruiting Targets
February 9, 2002
Badgermaniac.com 2002 Commit List
Official Recruit List-UWBadgers.com
Football focuses on defense, special teams with new recruiting class
-Badger Herald
2002 UW Football Recruits capsules -Capital Times
UW football: Badgers shore up with LBs -Capital Times
Lemming's Top 5 Classes in Big Ten-ESPN.com
Alvarez Announces Wisconsin's 2002 Recruiting Class-UWBadgers.com
For a nice writeup of Brown...
Nate Brown Profiled -PrepStars
For more on Watkins, check out the 2002 Verbals page.
Another brief Goode summary:
Elliot Goode-Prepstar.
Badger recruit Darrin Charles suffered a knee injury in the Wisconsin High School Shrine Game yesterday. The seriousness of the injury has yet to be determined but so far it looks optimistic.
Other future Badgers to play in the game included Bob Docherty, Jason Palermo, Mike Kleber, Jeff Lang, Craig Cummings, and Jim MacKenzie (who also reportedly was hurt).
UW recruit rules on new turf-JS Online
Charles stands out, but later sits at Shrine Bowl -Wisconsin State Journal
June 17, 2001
UW After Rhode Island Running Back -Inside Wisconsin
June 14, 2001
Badgers First To Offer McDuffie-Inside Wisconsin
June 10, 2001
Football camp gives UW, preps a big boost-Wisconsin State Journal (Nathan Brown mention)
June 8, 2001
Mark Zalewski Interview-Inside Wisconsin
UW Recruiting Update-Inside Wisconsin
May 18, 2001
Wisconsin received its first verbal committment from the football class of 2002 when LB Mark Zalewski pledged to become a Badger today.
Badgers Land Wausau Linebacker-Inside Wisconsin
Wausau East's Zalewski commits to Wisconsin
-Wausau Daily Herald
Zalewski reference
-PrepStar
May 17, 2001
Chris Pool's Top 10 Illinois football players can be found here . Wisconsin is listed by most of the players.
Wisconsin is also being listed in the top five by Ohio cornerback Ashton Watson (details found here) and is the unofficial leader for Oak Creek DT Nick Rohrer (details found here) .
May 16, 2001
Wisconsin has offered a football scholarship to Warren McDuffie, a TE from Iowa City. He is the brother of former Badger hoops player Otto McDuffie. Read about the offer here.
May 5, 2001
The Fox television channel in Austin, Texas has some nice recruiting information on their website. It is worth checking out if you are a recruitnik, as there is at least one player who mentions Wisconsin. Fox 7 Austin.
March 20, 2001
Wisconsin received another football commitment of sorts as All-State LB Craig Cummings from Wilmot High School is going to walk-on this fall and play for Wisconsin.
He is about 6-1 and 210 and I would estimate he runs around a 4.7 40.
In high school he was a RB/LB and he will play linebacker and perhaps even punter at Wisconsin and like most walk-ons will redshirt his freshman year.
He was a three year starter in high school and two time Conference Player of the Year on a team that never lost a conference game and won 23 games in a row while he played for them.
As a senior, he rushed for 2,217 yards and 31 touchdowns. He averaged 43.3 yards per kick as a punter. Defensively, he had 169 tackles, 9 for losses, 4 QB knockdowns, 2 picks (1 for TD), caused 8 fumbles and recovered 4 others (1 for TD).
He has a 3.99 GPA and will major in bio-chemistry.
He was being pursued by North Dakota State, Winona State, Columbia, and Northwestern as well as the state schools.
He also is an excellent baseball player who got looks there as well.
As someone who has coached against him, he is a very physical kid who is extremely intense. He is also very driven and a great leader. As with all walk-ons, the odds are long that he will be a contributor, but he is the prototype Alvarez walk-on and I wouldn't put it past him. You may see him as a special teams player down the road with his intensity and overall athleticism.
February 8, 2001
With football signing day now behind us, here are some recaps of the Badger class of 2001:
Badgermaniac's Target List
Alvarez Confident About 'Solid Class'-BadgerPlus
Hawthorne at the Head of UW's Talented Football Class-Mike Lucas, The Capital Times
Inside Wisconsin-Whitworth Analysis
Inside Wisconsin-Decker Analysis
December 19, 2000
Another day, another verbal committment for the football Badgers. This time, the culprit is Donovan Raiola of Honolulu, Hawaii. Riola is the younger brother of Dominic Riola, the All-American OL at Nebraska. Riola is considered very athletic and has a nasty streak that should serve him well.
December 18, 2000
Wisconsin recieved another football verbal commit today in OL Jake Wood, considered a very bright prospect.
December 17, 2000
Update: Wisconsin reportedly received verbal commitments from the following football players this past weekend:
Matt Lawrence
Scott Starks
Dontez Sanders
Robert Brooks
DeAndre Kemp
Devin Hollins
Sanders is the brother of OSU TE Darnell Sanders and is from the same HS as Chris Chambers and Lee Evans. He was considered a fairly strong Wisconsin lean.
Starks was a NW commit, and based on that, may be fickle and could be a soft verbal.
The other four are considered somewhat sleepers. Brooks is not a blazer, but is considered to be quick and skilled.
Likewise, Lawrence is not flashy, but is reportedly very quick off the ball and has good technique.
Kemp and Hollins are from California and are DB/WR/ATH types.
(Credit to Palestrini per Tom Lemming for the info.)
December 14, 2000
There was a brief article in the Des Moines Register about Wisconsin football recruiting, specifically about LB Gabe Toomey.
December 4, 2000
Some quick football recruiting tidbits.
Highly rated DT recruit Robert Taylor of Oak Creek has had his scholarship offer pulled for lack of academic progress.
Previous verbal Julius Davis retracted his committment a while back after a disgreement over what position he would play.
The Badgers did receive one solid committment this weekend in LB John Gillen of Glen Elyn, Illinois.
They also received a soft verbal from the son of assistant coach John Palermo, DT Jason Palermo of Madison Edgewood HS. He said a formal verbal should be forthcoming shortly.
The next two weekends are shaping up as huge recruiting weekends as well, so stay tuned.
June 25, 2000
The Badgers did gain five verbal committments this past week (although one sounds pretty soft). For a rundown, check out this article at the JS Online-BadgerPlus site.
Or, here is an article focusing on Charles from the Cap Times: UW Recruit Raises Bar as Receiver
May 9, 2000
Here is how The Sporting News sees the incoming Badger football freshman class:
Top 40 Players
April 12, 2000
For the preliminary story regarding the legal troubles of Badger football recruit Chris Catalano, check out this post, quoted directly from the LA Times.
January 31, 2000
Over the weekend, the Badger football team picked up two more verbal commitments in RB Howard Boye-Doe of Keller, Texas and Jerone Pettus of Roosevelt, NY. Boye-Doe is a taller back and had originally given a verbal to SMU before reconsidering. Pettus also had originally indicated that he would go elsewhere (Texas Tech), though finally chose the Badgers. Boye-Doe is more of a pure TB while Pettus, a TB in HS, will probably be switched to corner due to his size and speed.
The bad news as that heralded DT Lynn McGruder chose Tennessee.
January 28, 2000
Wisconsin received another football verbal committment as Houston, TX defensive end Jonathan Welsh decided to become a Badger. He is tall and very lanky (6'5", 205) but runs a quick 4.69 40. He is very athletic.
January 26, 2000
Wisconsin picked up another recruit in CB Chuckie Cowans, one of the late risers in the midwest according to the recruiting analysts.
But, in bad news, the Badgers lost out on prized recruits Kwame Harris (Stanford) and Keron Koon (Georgia Tech).
With the few remaining spots, the top two remaining targets appear to be Traison Lewis and Lynn McGruder.
January 24, 2000
Wisconsin also picked up another football verbal today as local DE Matt Katula of Waukesha agreed to walk-on to the Badger program, making him at least the second walk-on with legit D1 potential (along with West HS's Jim Knowles). Katula has a big frame and is fairly athletic and is an excellent pick-up as a walk-on.
Wisconsin is also very much in the hunt for pass rushing specialist Traison Lewis who has decommitted from USC and is rumored to favor Wisconsin. With signing day fastly approaching, it should be a fun final two weeks.
January 13, 2000
Wisconsin picked up a significant recruit yesterday when DT Kalvin Barrett gave his verbal committment. Barrett is a nationally significant recruit who has an excellent chance to move into the two deep as a true frosh (ala Wendell Bryant).
(Late note: it now appears that Barrett will be tried at OL first, probably as a guard or center because of his height.)