Wisconsin
Wisconsin football adds in-state JUCO transfer linebacker from Iowa Central
The University of Wisconsin football program dipped into the junior-college ranks for its second transfer portal addition of the offseason, adding a player who’s coming back home to play for the Badgers.
Linebacker Taylor Schaefer, a JUCO standout with deep Wisconsin roots, has announced he’s joining the Badgers for the 2026 season. The expectation is that he’ll have two years of collegiate eligibility remaining.
“Coming Home,” Schaefer wrote.
If the name sounds familiar, it should. Schaefer grew up in Sturgeon Bay, played his high school ball at Southern Door, and built the kind of reputation locally that usually ends with someone wearing Wisconsin colors.
It just took a few detours along the way for that moment to arrive.
Schaefer’s journey reads like the kind of story coaches love to retell on signing day. He wasn’t a national recruit out of high school. He didn’t have a mountain of Power Four offers waiting for him back then, and he didn’t land in the Big Ten conference on his first try. Instead, Schaefer carved out his path to Wisconsin the hard way: first redshirting at Minnesota Duluth, then grinding through developmental reps, and finally transferring to Iowa Central Community College to see if he could push his trajectory upward.
For taking the JUCO route, the return was about as good as it gets.
At Iowa Central, Schaefer didn’t just blend into a roster full of hungry players. He stood out. Over his JUCO career, he piled up 146 tackles, 70 solo stops, 15.0 tackles for loss, and seven sacks in 22 games, including a breakout 2025 season where Schaefer finished with 97 total tackles, 10.0 TFLs, and five sacks in just 10 games for the Tritons. Those numbers don’t happen by accident. They happen because of his motor. The instincts are real, and the physical tools match what the Badgers’ defensive scheme demands.
That production turned him into one of the most widely pursued defensive players in the JUCO ranks who was available in the portal. Schaefer quickly drew heavy interest, picking up scholarship offers from Arkansas, Kentucky, Iowa State, Nebraska, Purdue, Minnesota, and Colorado, among others, a far cry from the attention he received out of high school.
Programs were calling because they saw a linebacker with Big Ten measurables, proven productivity, and frame versatility at 6-foot-4 and around 240 pounds. He moved well enough to play multiple spots and had enough length and power to fit inside or bump out based on the front.
But for all the regional and national interest, the pull of Madison never really faded. Wisconsin was the dream when he was younger. Once the Badgers got Schaefer on campus for his official visit, the conversations in meeting rooms, the coaching staff’s demeanor, and the opportunity to come in and compete for snaps made the decision easier to see coming.
From Wisconsin’s perspective, the fit makes plenty of sense.
There’s no denying that, on paper, inside linebacker is one of the more talent-rich position groups returning in 2026, with Christian Alliegro, Mason Posa, and Cooper Catalano all positioned to play meaningful snaps again. But depth charts aren’t static, especially in Fickell’s program, and you’re always one injury away from seeing your rotation stretched past your comfort level.
Schaefer arrives as a player who can compete immediately while still offering developmental upside across multiple linebacker roles. He’s long enough to play in space, strong enough to play inside, and athletic enough to push for sub-package work potentially.
This is also the profile Wisconsin wanted in the portal: older, proven, physically ready, equipped for Big Ten football, and wired to embrace competition. He won’t be handed anything, and he doesn’t expect to be. But Schaefer gives the Badgers something their linebacker corps needed: an experienced, versatile defender who plays fast and tackles well.
His path to Madison may have detoured through the Division II ranks and JUCO ball, but there’s nothing accidental about how he got here. The progression has been steady: a redshirt year, a season Schaefer worked his way into the mix, followed by a breakout season, and now a Big Ten opportunity as a result. That’s a three-year arc that says as much about his trajectory as any camp evaluation or high-school film ever could.
This is also the kind of roster-building move that matters for Wisconsin in this particular offseason. You don’t retool a defense solely through high-school recruiting anymore. That’s not possible. Every program now has to explore every avenue, whether that’s the portal, lower-division standouts, or anything else that can bring in proven production and experience. In a win-now college football landscape, those traits matter more than ever.
The hope is that adding a player like Schaefer gives Wisconsin exactly that. He’s ready to compete and ready to continue pushing the room.
For the Badgers, it’s a nice early win in the portal cycle, the type that keeps the roster balanced and the depth chart insulated from attrition. And for Schaefer, it’s a homecoming that’s been years in the making.
Wisconsin still has more work to do when the Division I transfer portal opens on January 2. But adding Schaefer gives the defense another talented piece, another physical presence, and a competitor wired the way Luke Fickell prefers. It’s the kind of move that doesn’t grab national headlines, but often ends up mattering most when the pads come on.
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Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield shares his biggest spring takeaway
Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield shared his biggest takeaway from the spring following the Badgers’ four-set win over Northern Illinois.
MADISON – Kelly Sheffield has coached All-Americans, national players of the year, national champions and future Olympians in his 13 years as Wisconsin volleyball coach.
So Sheffield’s unique praise of Decelise Champion – a star pin-hitter from Puerto Rico who committed to the Badgers last fall – carries a lot of weight.
“Her highest-end potential is certainly as high as about anybody we’ve ever brought in,” Sheffield said. “She’s got a lot of work to get to where she’s capable of, and that’s on us as coaches and on her to help reach those dreams and goals. But when you’re watching people around her age, she’s different.”
That work is beginning earlier than initially expected after Wisconsin announced that Champion will reclassify from the 2027 recruiting class and join the Badgers as a freshman for the 2026 season.
Champion – currently 16 years old and turning 17 in September – will arrive with a resume that includes experience on Puerto Rico’s senior national team and the elite Italian club Volleyro Casal de Pazzi. That’s all while being strong enough academically to earn a GED degree and the necessary NCAA waiver for a few missing core classes.
“What made it really a lot better is that all of her grades at the different schools she’s been at have been fantastic,” Sheffield said. “She’s an excellent student. Was crushing it at a really, really good academic school in Italy in her third language.”
The timing of the June 12 announcement accounted for the second-last open roster spot for the 2026 season, but Champion and UW’s efforts to make the reclassification possible go back much earlier than that.
“We’ve known she’s wanted to do this since February,” Sheffield said. “We told our team in February that was the plan. And then we didn’t let anybody know publicly until she was done with her season. She just didn’t want to be a distraction for her team.”
Badgers have even more competition at pins
Wisconsin already had plenty of competition at the pin-hitting positions before Champion’s move to the 2026 class.
Grace Egan had a major role on the 2025 Final Four team, and Eva Travis had an impressive spring after transferring from UC-Santa Barbara. Others include Grace Lopez, Madison Quest and the highly-touted freshman duo of Halle Thompson and Audrey Flanagan.
Even with the upcoming addition of one more pin-hitter – and one with such a high potential – UW did not lose any players in the spring transfer portal cycle. Even the idea of someone leaving seemed outlandish to Sheffield.
“If they’re just going to get up and leave because somebody came, I would say that that person is probably chicken s—,” Sheffield said.
Sheffield’s praise of Champion’s proposal obviously does not come with a guarantee of playing time either at the crowded pin-hitting positions.
“I would say, yeah, she does have a chance of being out on the court for us this year,” Sheffield said. “But we’ve also got some other really talented people that play the pins.”
The outside and right-side hitters already on UW’s spring roster will have at least one key advantage over Champion in her freshman season – time.
Egan, Lopez and Quest are returning players (although Egan and Lopez spent their spring recovering from injuries). Travis, Thompson and Flanagan all enrolled in time to spend the spring with the Badgers and impressed in UW’s spring matches.
Champion’s arrival, on the other hand, will follow her participation in an Olympic-qualifying event for Puerto Rico. Sheffield expects that to be Sept. 2, which is the day before fall classes begin and already after UW’s first four matches of the season.
“She’ll be drinking out of a fire hose early on, no doubt about it,” Sheffield said. “Even though she’s been playing with her senior national team this summer, it will be a lot of things coming at her in her secondary language at 16, so there’ll need to be some patience along the way.”
His advice to Champion when she was on campus earlier in June was to “be where your feet are.”
“When she’s with her national team – even though we will have started our preseason, playing matches – don’t worry about us here,” Sheffield said. “Be where your feet are. Be the best you can be for your team there. … Then when you get here, you’re not thinking about your national team.”
Champion’s NCAA eligibility clock starts earlier
Champion’s reclassification comes with the drawback of beginning her NCAA eligibility one year earlier in her volleyball career.
Had she stayed in the 2027 recruiting class, she theoretically would have begun her college career shortly before her 18th birthday and exhausted her eligibility at age 22. Instead, she will begin her college career shortly before her 17th birthday and likely exhaust her eligibility at age 21.
Those scenarios take into account the NCAA Division I Cabinet’s unanimous approval on June 23 of a new eligibility model that will give players five seasons of eligibility in five years. (That replaces the current system with four seasons, redshirts and other waivers.) The NCAA noted that its decision is not final, however, until the meeting concludes on June 24.
“We’re certainly excited to have her this year, but if you kind of think over the course of five years, it’s probably worse for us that she comes a year early,” Sheffield said. “You expect her to be better at 20 and 21 than what she is at 16 or 17. … It really wasn’t something that we were pushing for, but she was ready.”
Of course, volleyball at age 16 or 17 looks different for someone like Champion who has been competing against much older players as a senior national team member and studying halfway across the world from her hometown of Dorado, Puerto Rico.
“When you talk to her, she doesn’t come across as somebody who’s 16,” Sheffield said. “She’s very mature, very easy to talk to, very driven. She’s independent. … She’s had a lot more life experience than most people her age, and that certainly comes across when you’re around her.”
Wisconsin
Cult-classic filmed in central Wisconsin returns to big screen, with enhancements, this weekend
STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAW) – A giant spider isn’t actually invading central Wisconsin this weekend.
But an enhanced, big-screen version of the cult-classic 1975 film The Giant Spider Invasion is crawling back into local theaters — and it’s bringing some central Wisconsin nostalgia with it.
The movie was famously filmed in Merrill and Stevens Point, and the updated 2026 release adds enhancements designed for a modern theatrical experience.
What’s new in the 2026 enhanced version?
Executive Producer J.B. Thompson says the team took the original 1975 film and enhanced it for the big screen in 2026, giving audiences a refreshed way to experience a movie that’s long been a Wisconsin oddity — and a point of pride.
Actor and Producer Dan Davies is featured in newly filmed scenes created specifically for this updated release.
Stevens Point’s role in the original film
While much of the film is associated with Merrill, Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza says Point also played a major role in the production — another reason the film’s return matters to local history buffs and movie fans alike.
Why does this movie still capture attention 50 years later?
Whether it’s the over-the-top creature feature story, the uniquely Wisconsin filming locations, or the nostalgia of seeing familiar places on screen, the group says the film’s staying power is real — even five decades later.
Screenings this weekend
The enhanced version of The Giant Spider Invasion is set for local screenings this weekend in Central and North Central Wisconsin. To purchase tickets for showings in Stevens Point, Marshfield or Waupaca, click here.
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