Wisconsin
2026 four-star LB Storm Miller discusses recruitment, heavy interest from Wisconsin
The Wisconsin Badgers have begun their 2024 season, but that doesn’t mean their recruiting efforts have taken a backseat, with a ton of focus going towards the 2026 class currently.
One of those top targets has been four-star linebacker Storm Miller, who has long been an interest of the coaching staff, with Wisconsin mainly recruiting him as an inside linebacker.
“They’ve been recruiting me more as an inside linebacker [with] Coach [Mike] Tressel, but coach Mitch (OLBs coach Matt Mitchell), he’s also been recruiting me on the outside, too, so they’ve been recruiting me like they like my versatility, so they think I can play either inside or outside,” Miller said of the Badgers.
The Ohio native’s relationship with the coaching staff dates back to Miller’s eighth grade season when defensive coordinator Mike Tressel, then at Cincinnati, went to watch him workout. Since then, the two have developed a close relationship, with the Badgers even extending Miller their first Power 4 offer.
“He’s known me since he came to a workout when I was in 8th grade and he was at Cincinnati, so I’ve known him since he was at Cincinnati, and obviously he stayed with me when he went to Wisconsin, so it means a lot,” Miller said of Tressel. “I’ve known him for almost four years now, so it’s crazy. And he definitely was, the first coach that really believed in me.”
“They (Wisconsin) were my first Power 4 offer, and he’s always been in touch with me even before I had any offers. So, I’ve been following Coach [Luke] Fickell, Coach Tressel since they were in Cincinnati. So, yeah, I’ve had that connection for a while, and when I found out they were moving to Wisconsin, you know, I thought maybe, you know, that would be it. But, I mean, it couldn’t have been more the opposite. He stayed with me and kept believing in me, and I appreciate it.”
One of the bigger changes, though, has been Fickell and Co. moving to Wisconsin and away from the in-state area for Miller. Has that changed anything in his recruitment, especially as an offer from Ohio State has come along?
“To me, it doesn’t matter,” Miller said. “Like, my brother, he’s at Clemson right now, so, you know, I feel like I’m gonna go to the place that’s best fit for me. And, you know, when it comes down, time to decide, I mean, there’s no doubt that Wisconsin, you know, is definitely gonna be up there.”
“So, to me, the whole traveling, being in Ohio, like, obviously I got the Ohio State offer this summer, but, you know, that doesn’t mean I’m not open to other things. Some kids from Ohio, you know, are strictly mindset on Ohio State, but Ohio State is a great school and, like, obviously I have good connections with coaches from them, not ruling them out, but I’m kind of similar to my brother in the way that, you know, kind of just going to go wherever fits me best, whether that’s in state or out of state.”
Early on, there are a number of standouts for Miller, with Wisconsin, Ohio State, Clemson, Stanford, West Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan State, and Missouri all pretty involved with his recruitment, but the Badgers are definitely a school recruiting him “really hard.”
With a number of schools interested in the four-star linebacker, Miller does plan to narrow down his list of schools in the near future, with the Badgers firmly in the mix.
During his junior season, the 6’3, 215-pound linebacker is looking to continue adding to his versatility, playing as a pass-rusher more, while also looking to become a better athlete.
“So this year, I’ve actually been playing more edge, but also linebacker, so, you know, really working on my pass rush and stuff, kind of just making myself more valuable, learning, and being better off the edge. [I] was already was good, but kind of just getting better in the box to kind of working against linemen.”
“And then big focus was working on my speed and quickness, which I feel like I have gotten better at, but, I mean, it’s something you can always keep getting better at. Like, I got my 40 from a 5.00 my sophomore year to like a 4.7. So really just working on my speed and quickness is definitely the big thing.”
It’ll surely be a busy junior season for the 2026 recruit with a number of schools after the Ohio native, and the linebacker will look to continue adding to his profile with another strong year playing for Strongsville High School.
(WLUK) — Wisconsin State Patrol troopers are teaming up with truckers to better spot dangerous driving behaviors.
The annual Trooper in a Truck initiative kicks off next week in Wisconsin.
Troopers will ride along with with semitruck and bus drivers to use the higher vantage point to spot dangerous driving behaviors, especially near commercial motor vehicles.
Troopers will be looking for risky driving behaviors, including distracted driving, speeding, following too closely and seatbelt violations. When an officer identifies a violation from the truck or bus, they will radio to patrol cars in the area for appropriate enforcement action.
Drivers can expect to see Trooper in a Truck enforcement in the following areas:
BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT
- Monday, July 13: Eau Claire
- Tuesday, July 14: Waukesha
- Wednesday, July 15: Madison
- Thursday, July 16: Green Bay
- Friday, July 17: Wausau
New Wisconsin athletic director Shawn Eichorst, who spent the last eight years at Texas, believes his new and old schools have much in common.
Both are well-regarded research universities in state capitals that belong to major conferences and have relatively similar enrollments.
He also pointed out one difference.
“There’s swag at Texas, right?” Eichorst said Tuesday during his introductory news conference. “There’s 30 million people in Texas. We’ve got swag, too, but we have a little humility with that deal. We need to get our shoulders up. We need to feel good about what it is that we’re doing.”
Wisconsin could gain more of that Texas swagger if its football program gets back to winning the way it did the last time Eichorst was employed in Madison. Eichorst, who most recently worked as a deputy athletic director at Texas, received a five-year deal worth $1.6 million annually, with provisions for increases and incentives. He was hired 2½ months after Chris McIntosh left to become the Big Ten’s deputy commissioner for strategy.
Eichorst worked at Wisconsin from 2006-11 when Barry Alvarez was AD and Bret Bielema was leading the football program. He followed that up with stints as an athletic director at Miami (2011-12) and Nebraska (2012-17) before Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte hired him in 2018.
He returns to Wisconsin with the Badgers coming off back-to-back losing seasons in football, a notable fall for a program that had 22 straight winning seasons from 2002-23. Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell has gone 17-21 after posting a 53-10 record with one College Football Playoff appearance in his last five years at Cincinnati.
Eichorst hasn’t worked with Fickell before but said he’s encouraged by their initial conversations.
“Obviously he’s won every place he’s been,” Eichorst said. “My expectation is more of me than him, meaning I need to pour into him, learn more about his program, how he has things set up, how his athletes are taken care of, how we’re supporting that endeavor. And then we can figure out, as we move along, what that might look like.”
Football struggles led to Eichorst’s downfall the last time he was an athletic director.
He fired Nebraska coach Bo Pelini in 2014 and hired Mike Riley, who had gone 93-80 in 14 seasons at Oregon State. Eichorst was dismissed shortly after Nebraska suffered an early-season loss to Northern Illinois in 2017. Riley was fired at the end of that season after going 19-19 in three years.
When Eichorst’s hiring was announced last week, he spoke about how much he had grown from that Nebraska stint. Wisconsin interim chancellor Eric Wilcots led the search and has emphasized Eichorst’s accomplishments at Texas, which has won the Learfield Directors’ Cup all-sports standings five times in the last six years.
Texas ranked anywhere from fifth to ninth in the Directors’ Cup standings in the five years before Wilcots’ arrival. Texas’ football team went a combined 23-27 from 2014-17 but has made two College Football Playoff appearances in the last three years.
“Everybody looks at the end result of what we did at Texas,” Eichorst said. “When we got there in 2018, we weren’t very good in a lot of areas. And that didn’t change overnight.”
Eichorst said one thing that has caught his attention about Wisconsin is the overall quality of its head coaches.
“You’re going to be as good as your coaches,” Eichorst said. “That’s it. If you have an elite group of coaches who are working together and uniting and galvanizing and learning from one another and taking it out to their individual programs, I think you can start to build something special. I go back to Texas. We built a room of really elite head coaches and put them at the top of everything we did to help guide us.”
Eichorst said this job is particularly important to him because of his Wisconsin roots. He was born in Lone Rock, about 45 miles northwest of the Madison campus.
He treasured his previous stint at Wisconsin and says he believes this school “represents everything that is great about higher education and college athletics.”
“Nobody will work harder for Wisconsin athletics,” Eichorst said. “I love this state, and I love everything that it represents. The passion is there. You can see it. I don’t have to make it up. I’ve lived it. It’s in my heart.”
___
AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports
Wisconsin
South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, officials in standoff with homeowner over year-round skeleton display
The city of South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has ordered a homeowner to take down his year-round giant skeleton display or face fines, but the homeowner is standing firm and refusing, even as the deadline to remove the display has passed.
Now there’s a skeleton standoff.
The city cited ordinance violations in their order for Sean Oster to dismantle the lawn decorations. The notice specifically references “large Halloween decorations being displayed not during the appropriate time of year.”
Oster was also ordered to make other improvements to his property.
But Oster has refused to take down the display, which is re-dressed as the year goes on and is currently sporting a Fourth of July theme. The Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, has come to his aid, saying the city’s actions violate Oster’s First Amendment rights.
City administrators declined to comment, citing a pending investigation. Neighbors have been divided by the display; some say they’re fine with it, and think it brings fun and positivity to the neighborhood, but some others want to see it removed and say the lawn should be kept up better and more consistently.
Oster said he’s hoping to reach an agreement with the city, and said he’s corrected all other violations outside of the display.
-
Movie Reviews4 minutes ago‘Evil Dead Burn’ Movie Review – Spotlight Report
-
World12 minutes agoHoops Players’ Win Tops Big Day in NCAA Eligibility Litigation
-
Health37 minutes ago3 Best Peptides for Weight Loss—and the Viral One Doctors Say To Skip
-
Lifestyle52 minutes agoSmithsonian chief emphasizes ‘accuracy and integrity’ after White House report
-
Technology1 hour agoMicrosoft’s carbon emissions went up 25 percent last year
-
World1 hour agoJailed Catholic woman’s hunger strike highlights Iran religious persecution — US demands action
-
Politics1 hour agoIsrael shares intelligence warning Iran plotted new assassination attempt against Trump: report
-
Health1 hour agoParasitic infection causing ‘explosive’ stomach illness exceeds 1,000 cases in northern state
