Where Wisconsin’s class of 2019 fell in The Athletic’s re-rank of the class

Wisconsin’s recruiting success from 2019-2021 often gets lost when discussing the Paul Chryst era. While his final years with the Badgers were defined by recruiting stagnation and the lack of quarterback options, that red-hot run from 2019-2021 set up the program’s best defense in history (2021) and assembled a roster that now has high expectations under Luke Fickell.

There is a nuanced conversation to be had about where Wisconsin’s recruiting ceiling sits. What cannot be argued: Chryst and his staff likely got the program pretty close to that ceiling during that timespan.

The three classes, with their national ranking, Blue Chip Ratio and average rating per recruit:

• 2019: 19 commits, No. 28 nationally, 21% BCR, 88.21 average player rating
• 2020: 20 commits, No. 26 nationally, 25% BCR, 87.83 average player rating
• 2021: 21 commits, No. 16 nationally, 42% BCR, 89.31 average player rating

The classes brought in contributors including Graham Mertz, Joe Tippmann, Maema Njongmeta, Leo Chenal, Keeanu Benton, Jack Nelson, Nick Herbig, Chimere Dike, Jordan Turner, Tanor Bortolini, James Thomson Jr., Hunter Wohler, Braelon Allen and Darryl Peterson. Plus several more that will emerge in the coming years.

The Athletic recently did a re-rank of one of the classes mentioned above, 2019. The website’s Max Olson went through the entirety of the sport and re-ranked the top 25 classes from that year.

Wisconsin originally finished No. 28 in the nation led by commits including five-star OT Logan Brown, four-star QB Graham Mertz, four-star OT Joe Tippmann and four-star OLB Spencer Lytle.

Olson moved the Badgers group up to No. 21 overall, writing “It’s a smaller class at 20 signees that had some great hits led by Chenal, an All-American who just won a Super Bowl as a rookie with the Chiefs, and Benton and Tippmann were top-50 draft picks this spring. The two highest-rated players in this class did end up moving on, as did eight other signees.”

The jury remains out on the program’s stellar 2020 and 2021 classes. With a strong first few years under Fickell, we could see those groups rise even higher in a re-ranking of classes.