This Week in Badgers: Recruiting Rankings Matter Again!
This Week in Badgers: Season 1, Episode 40
Welcome to This Week in Badgers where we celebrate Linebackers from the 10s, Defensive Backs from the 80s and in a first for this Newsletter, don’t talk much about the 90s. Stick around for a New Jersey geography update and an interview with AllBadger’s Jake Kocorowski.
Your Weekly Players are Back Update
It's exciting that the players are back, but also no real updates other than “the players are back and we hope no one gets sick.” 2020 has been a blast, it really has.
The Badgers did put out a 10 minute video of Ross Kolodziej talking about workouts. I’m sure it's a good video and maybe this makes me a bad fan, but it was about 9 minutes more than I needed to stick around for.
Corrections from Last Week: Medford, NJ, home of 2021 recruit Mike Jarvis, cannot be 20 miles west of Philadelphia and still be in NEW JERSEY. Thank you to Drew for pointing this out. I’d like to say I’ve learned from this and the Newsletter will be free of such inaccuracies in the future, but we know that isn’t true.
Issues with Tinyletter? Got an email that links are hard to open through this, so throwing it out there to see if this issue is more widespread. I did mess up the Graham Mertz IG link last week which is unforgivable. I'm using it as an opportunity to get better.
Recruiting
Hello TJ Bollers! This has been rumored for a long time, nice to finally have it official. Bollers is a 6’3” 250 OLB from an Iowa City, IA suburb. Coming in at 4 stars (.94) on the 247 Composite he chose the Badgers over Alabama, Iowa State and Nebraska, among others.
The Badgers really haven’t gone into Iowa to recruit much and Bollers is only the 7th HS recruit they’ve pulled from the state in the last 40 years. Michael Roan and Jake Wood are the other names you’d recognize. Bollers is the 2nd ranked player in the state behind 4 star TE Thomas Fidone who 247 seems to think is going to Nebraska. The state of Iowa has a loaded 2021 class and the Hawkeyes have gotten most of them, but has to hurt a little to miss out on the top 2.
Last week was a lot of me whining about DL recruiting and it's the exact opposite at LB. I think 2016 was really the year that the switch flipped at LB for the Badgers. Schoebert had gotten drafted, then Watt and Biegel had great years and really showed up against top competition like LSU, Michigan and Ohio St. They of course would both be drafted and are still playing in the NFL. Cichy, Edwards, Connelly, Jacobs, Orr, Baun and others all solidified that rep in the following years.
Since 2016 they’ve won the following recruiting battles for out of state guys:
Andrew Van Ginkel, one of the top Juco recruits
Jack Sandborn (.89) over Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan St, Northwestern
Bryan Sandborn (.88) over Iowa
Spencer Lytle (.89) over Clemson, Notre Dame, Nebraska and many more
Malik Reed (.87) over Nebraska and a bunch of Pac 12 offers
Aaron Witt (.87) decommited from both Iowa and Minnesota.
Nick Herbig (.94) over USC, Nebraska, Oklahoma and many others
Kaden Johnson (.92) over home state Minnesota and the rest of the B10
Darryl Peterson (.87) over West Virginia and Michigan
Bollers (.94) over home state Iowa, Alabama and Nebraska
Just a great run at the position the past few years. Obviously a team effort from the staff, but Bobby April’s name seems to pop up a lot with these guys. After a disappointing 2018 season where we really didn’t hear much from him and the OLBs really struggled, I was half-expecting him to be gone. With some guys emerging in 2019 and the recruiting success they’ve had with him, seems to be a great hire.
A recruit I had completely forgotten about was JC Latham from Waukesha, who committed to Alabama last week. It's not always the case, but usually when guys leave their hometowns to play at IMG Academy it's to get on the radar of more schools, and when Latham made the move in 2019 it seemed pretty obvious he was thinking outside of Wisconsin. Good for him to use that opportunity to land at Alabama. His move to IMG and decision to move from DL to OL mostly put him out of my mind at least, I assume the Badger coaching staff probably felt similarly.
Other Stuff of Interest
Bret Bielema, trying to get that money! I’m firmly on Team Bielema with this one. When Arkansas backed up the Brinks truck to get him we had all sorts of takes about how the Badgers were cheap, the Big Ten didn’t take football as seriously as the SEC and on and on. Years later, a broke Arkansas program that hasn’t won anything with or without him is trying to get out of a contract they signed. Apples, how do you like them.
Jesse had the best look I’ve seen from anyone on how the staff/players adjusted to the lost spring. One takeaway is the continuity with players and coaches really must have helped during this. I’m left wondering how the WR group handled this as they were the only guys with a new coach and I can’t imagine how a team with an entirely new staff like Michigan State made this work.
Will be interesting to see how the Mothership handles summer workouts this year. I’m sure they’ve got months of pent up energy ready to use on a 15 minute video of Danny Davis stretching or a Chenal brother curling a refrigerator, but probably want to keep it a little low key so a photo of the weight room doesn’t set off a 2 week debate on social distancing.
I spend 90 seconds every morning trying to find the countdown number in Lucas’ tweets that are getting more and more involved. I’m waiting for the first one to break up the numbers, like a 7 in one spot and a 5 in the other for the 75 days until opener (?) Tweet.
I’m fine, I swear. I really am.
Drew at B5Q with a quick hitter on Badgers in the 2021 NFL Draft that somehow doesn’t include Jack Coan! I kid, or do I?. The article was just about the top 5 guys at each position from PFF which mentioned Ferguson and Sandborn. Obviously CVL would seem to be the next OL in the NFL pipeline and I’m curious if Loudermilk and Caesar Williams can play their way into more NFL mentions as well.
Not much else out there this week, TJ Bollers was a #content haul for everyone but we’ve covered that above
Let’s Remember Some Guys
Today’s guy is Nate Odomes, DB from 1983 to 1986. I was born in 1982 so my only memory of Odomes was watching him play on the great Buffalo Bills teams of the early 90s. As a result I had some fun researching this one, lots to cover from a pretty fascinating player.
Odomes really did it all at Wisconsin. He was a reserve DB his FR/Soph year and starter as a Junior and Senior, pulling in 7 INTs and a return TD in 1986. The 7 INTs are tied for the 3rd best single season in school history behind Jimmy Leonhard and Neovia Greyer. He also returned Punts, Kicks and oh yeah ran Track as well. Like really ran Track, not just Jonathan Taylor’d himself to a random meet. He was part of multiple top 10s in the 100 and 200 meter relays and also took 2nd in the long jump to help the Badgers win the 1986 Indoor season.
On the football field the Badgers weren’t any good his final two seasons, but Odomes still stuck out enough to get a combine invite where he ran a 4.43 40 yard dash, a 2.54 20 yard split and benched 18 reps. That was enough, even at 5’9”, to get drafted #29 overall by the Bills.
Before he got to Madison, Odomes went to Carver HS in Columbus, GA where the Badgers had quite the pipeline going in the 80s, getting 7 guys from Carver and 17 from the state between 1983 and 1990. For comparison in the 30 years since, they’ve gotten 10 total. Do any readers know how they pulled so many guys from Caver? It spanned the McClain and Morton years and then totally cut off once Alvarez got here, I’m curious but couldn’t find anything.
While I’m still thinking about Georgia recruits, I’ve always been impressed with kids from the South moving thousands of miles away from friends and family to go to school in a place that I love, but also a place with awful winters. Making a decision like that for whatever reason - academic, NFL or professional goals has to be an intense thing for an 18 year old. Now imagine making that decision before the Internet was around and before they even had an indoor practice facility! You’re moving from Georgia to Wisconsin, practicing outside in November and your only communication with family are letters and 40 cents per minute long distance phone calls. Brutal.
ANYWAYS, Odomes went on to make a name for himself with the early 90s Bills teams, becoming one of the stalwarts and playing 108 consecutive games. He made two Pro Bowls for his efforts as well. The mid 80s and early 90s were the golden era of Badger DBs with Odomes, Vincent and Richard Johnson all having NFL success. The teams were bad but they had great NFL DBs, pretty much the opposite of today.
Following the 1993 season Odomes signed a huge $8.4m Free Agency deal (Reggie White for comparison, got $17m) and then it all went to hell. He wrecked his knee playing in a charity basketball game and missed the 1994 season, then injured the knee again in training camp the next year and missed the 1995 season. He had to deny he had a drinking problem (which it sounded like he had) and played a half season in 1996 but by that point he was pretty much done.
Odomes doesn’t appear to be active on social media and isn’t really in the Wisconsin “ecosystem” anymore, but seems to be doing well in Atlanta with occasional appearances in local media.
Nate Odomes, remembered.
Paul Chryst responding to a Jake Kocorowski question, 2018
Beater Know a Beat Reporter - Jake Kocorowski
With all this Badger downtime I decided it was time to bother someone who does this full time. Since Mike Lucas has a restraining order out on me and Jaypo pretends we aren’t friends, I reached out to Jake from the SI site AllBadgers for a wide ranging conversation that covered his new site, Jim Sorgi and weight lifting.
TWIB: You currently write for the new-ish SI site AllBadgers, and I'll admit that I was a little skeptical about it at first. SI was getting some iffy press and I was worried it was on the way to being another Bleacher Report clickbait farm, BUT it was encouraging they gave you the gig and I think you've done a good job with it.
The site is easy to use, you do a good job getting all the relevant news in there with some interviews/longer stuff, plus enough recruiting stuff that I feel like I know what's going on without having to dig deep on the message boards. I always check it before a Newsletter goes out to make sure I didn't miss anything. This is basically a long winded way for me to ask - how do you think the site is going and what are your goals for it?
Jake: *slips you a crisp $20 bill for the kind words, another $20 for my delay in getting this back to you* First, thanks for the kind words for the site. It’s honestly been a labor of love and a balancing act of ensuring I get the breaking news out but also diving deeper with features and analysis (while still being a working from home dad that has three sons who just finished up online schooling). I’m still learning and growing as to how to improve time management being the only reporter and beat writer currently (as well as publisher of my site, so I also act as a small business owner).
One of my goals is to be one of the best sites and go-to destinations for Badgers fans for breaking news, great game/recruiting analysis and more, though I’m still working on the community aspect in terms of generating genuine conversations with fans.
I have ideas to expand. I do not want to cover just recruiting and football and basketball, but I would love to dive into coverage for volleyball and women’s hockey at the very least. Maybe men’s hockey and wrestling, too. That will obviously take more than just me running the site on my own, so we’ll see just what comes out of the future depending upon the pandemic and if/when games and matches resume and subsequently finding more reporters for the site.
There’s potential to cover some really good programs at UW, and I’m hoping to give others opportunities to report on them, just like I was given the chance when I joined B5Q almost seven years ago.
TIWB: Now that we have the self promotion out of the way, the question on everyone's mind: Bollinger or Sorgi?
Jake: AGH. I was at UW for Sorgi’s final two years as a Badger, so the familiarity is there. I actually went to the Wisconsin fact book, and I did not know both had a completion percentage under 55.6%. The passing numbers are close enough, but I think Brooks takes it because of his mobility and the fact he took over for the 1999 team that won in Pasadena.
TWIB: Funniest one-liner you've heard from Chryst?
Jake: For everyone reading this, I told Andy prior to starting to answer these questions that I was trying to think of one he’s said, and nothing’s coming to mind. Maybe it’s the fact that 2020 has gone extremely long and my memory is fuzzy from only being in media situations with him twice between Dec. 31 to now. You’re going to have to get Oatesy to do one of these.
Honestly, I just recall the moments before Paul talks more than anything. The media waiting on the McClain Center turf or inside one of the media rooms depending upon the day. All of us making small chat in one way or another. Then Paul would enter the room, have a couple quick pleasantries with a few reporters and then get down to business when the recorders come out.
TWIB: What assistant coach do you enjoy talking with the most? If its not John Settle I'll be a little hurt.
Jake: John’s always been great. I have not spoken to him as much as I should over the past five years, though I had a great chat with him about running backs delivering stiff arms for an article I never got to publish in 2017 (still feel terrible about that -- was still balancing three kids under seven and a full-time career as an executive assistant). He’s fantastic though whenever I have spoken with him.
The staff is really good to talk to for the most part. Maybe it’s more because we’ve had the chance to speak with them every week during the season, but Joe Rudolph and Jim Leonhard have been fun to converse with and you get fun snippets of information out of them.
You talk about one-liners or good quotes, Rudolph was amazing last season when I asked him a couple questions. Maybe my favorite one was when I wrote about Cormac Sampson for BadgerBlitz.com in September.
TWIB: Give me an "off the radar Badger" that is going to surprise everyone in 2020:
Jake: Is Isaac Guerendo off the radar enough? I remember Garrett Groshek talking about him last April and just how the back had all the talent in the world, and once he stops thinking too much, he would be fun to watch. You saw glimpses of that last season towards the end of 2019 at Minnesota and even two touches in the Rose Bowl against Oregon.
There is a lot of talent in Settle’s room, and I think there could be different roles to fill and complement as they work to replace Jonathan Taylor’s production. Spring practices would have been big for Guerendo and someone like Julius Davis to get more reps, who I think has potential as well.
I don’t have any real inside sources on this one -- I just see a lot of explosiveness from the Indiana native.
TWIB: Do you think the Badgers erasing Nick Davis from the receiving record books was intentional or an honest mistake?
Jake: Hahahaha, honest mistake. Assistant director of brand communications Brian Mason is amazing with his game notes and stats for football and when he’s at the Kohl Center for basketball games.
TWIB: I've gleaned from your Twitter account you're an avid weightlifter in your free time, how have you been adjusting during the past few months with places shut down?
Jake: I have gained a decent amount of weight in two months, and apparently lifting three kids on a daily basis during home quarantine isn’t enough. Long story short: Not well.
Pushups, bodyweight squats, pullups, and a few gallons of ice cream later, thankfully the gym has opened back up. Lost some strength in the legs but my upper body has not lost as much as I thought.
For what it’s worth, I’m taking major precautions, and our club here in Madison unveiled some outstanding cleaning initiatives and protocols as well. It’s been good to get back in the routine and also to work off the frustration of your oldest son owning you in Mario Kart 8 and trash talking you the entire race.
TWIB: Anything else you want to add to this amazing interview? Here's your chance to roast the Newsletter and its author.
Jake: I’ll go the opposite of the roasting, a huge thanks to you for allowing me the opportunity to chat. I’m extremely fortunate to have gone on a career path (and have the support of my family, especially my wife) of somehow turning this into what appears to be a career. From podcasting to blogging to essentially beat writing to REALLY BEAT WRITING to site publisher, it’s been a unique ride. Hope it continues, and hopefully y’all will come along and continue the journey.
That will be it for this week! Thanks to Jake for answering my dumb questions and thanks to everyone for reading. Feel free to respond to this email or reach out on Twitter with any comments, thoughts or suggestions. Go Badgers.