How many new players are on the roster in 2024? What’s the positional breakdown of the new guys? Did the Badgers bring in more Freshmen or Transfers?

New Faces in Madison

There are 85 scholarships on an FBS football roster. How many of those 85 weren’t in Madison last year?

There are 2 categories of new guys here: Freshmen, and Transfers.

Let’s start with the ones who are unlikely to play, but are the future of the program: The Freshmen. Wisconsin brought in 22 scholarship freshmen in 2024. That’s pretty close to the pre-transfer portal standard of 25ish new freshmen per year. Wisconsin is sticking to traditional recruiting, even in the portal era. 

The breakdown by position. 

5 – Offensive Lineman
4 – Defensive Backs
3 – Running Backs 
3 – Linebackers
3 – Defensive Lineman
2 – Tight Ends
1 – Wide Receiver
1 – Quarterback

Wisconsin likes to handle the development of Offensive linemen themselves. They brought in 5 freshmen in 2024, and 5 freshmen in 2023. We’ll get to transfers shortly, but you’ll notice they only took one O-Lineman from the portal this year.

Running Back is also a position where the Badgers are quite good at stacking talent. But anyone reading this probably already knew that. 

Guys who might actually play in 2024:

4* RBs Dilin Jones and Darrion Dupree
4* DL Ernest Willor Jr. and Dillan Johnson

RB and DL are spots where depth is a little shaky at Wisconsin, so that’s why these guys might play this year.

Now for the transfers

Wisconsin brought in 14 transfers this offseason to fill holes and upgrade the roster for the 2024 season. The headliner is a new starting Quarterback with 3 years of starting experience, but he won’t be the only transfer to be starting week 1.

 With each transfer, I have the school they are coming from in (parentheses) and their predicted roll for 2024 in italics.

QB Tyler Van Dyke (Miami) – Expected starter
RB Tawee Walker (Oklahoma) – Likely RB2
WR Tyrell Henry (Michigan State) – Depth
WR Joseph Griffin Jr. (Boston College) – Depth
TE Jackson McGohan (LSU) – Depth
OT Leyton Nelson (Vanderbilt) – Depth
DL Elijah Hills (Albany) – Expected Starter
DL Brandon Lane (Stephan F. Austin) – Rotational Piece
ILB Jaheim Thomas (Arkansas) – Expected Starter
ILB Tackett Curtis (USC) – Future Starter
ILB Sebastian Cheeks (North Carolina) – Depth
OLB John Pius (William & Mary) – Expected Starter
OLB Leon Lowery (Syracuse) – Rotational Piece
CB RJ Delancy III (Toledo) – Possible Starter

That’s a good mix of expected starters, roll players, and guys to develop for future seasons. Even though Fickell has said he wants to build the roster via traditional recruiting, he has shown he isn’t against using the portal to make the team better. The position that saw the biggest makeover (besides QB) is the Linebackers. 3 inside guys and 2 pass rushers were brought because the guys leftover from the Paul Chryst days didn’t excel in the new system.

This brings the total to 36 new Badgers in 2024. 

36/85 players were not on the roster last year. I think that makes it pretty clear that this team is substantially different from last year’s squad. Hopefully, this team is substantially better too. 

#BuckyByAMillion

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This article was written by Cole Tollison and edited by Hayden Breene