re: Hey WI posters. Who are your stars? Who should we be concerned about?

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There are lots of theories about why Wisconsin has out-performed its recruiting rankings almost every year since 1993.

In no particular order:
- Wisconsin high school players are lightly regarded by recruiting gurus. JJ Watt, Melvin Gordon, Joe Thomas all wound up as five star talents who were lightly regarded.

- Wisconsin tends to sign in-state kids with little drama. Without the drama, those kids don't garner high guru rankings.

- Great coaching and coachable kids. Nice thought.

- Walk-on program. As the only D1A program in the state, lots of kids would prefer to walk-on to getting a low D1A scholarship or a D1AA ride out of state. Out of maybe 15 or 20 walk-ons each year, only two or three need to be good to greatly boost on the field performance compared to recruiting rankings. (Three important players last season - Stave, Erickson and Schobert were walk-ons)

- Wisconsin coaches refuse to play games with the recruiting gurus. They don't care about recruiting rankings, just winning games.

- A negative halo effect from the days Wisconsin was really bad.

Take your pick.

I had an additional thought to add to this list.

Unlike Southern high schools, Wisconsin high schools do not have spring camp and other extra football. This means that Southern kids are more football-mature. They have a higher floor than the Wisconsin kids, but not necessarily a higher ceiling as the Wisconsin kids often are able to improve more.

That makes recruiting a bit tougher on the Wisconsin coaches because they need to do more projecting. And they will probably have a higher percentage of misses. That higher percentage is off-set by the walk-on program that allows kids with real potential to come into the program even when not as well prepared out of high school.

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Hope you don't mind me dredging up an old thread.

Wisconsin will, as usual, finish about 40th in the national recruiting rankings this season. Bottom tier of the Big Ten.

This season we went 11-3 with a Cotton Bowl win. Not the Rose or the playoffs, but pretty decent. Lost three close games so we were within a few plays of a bigger season.

The ultimate stars of the team in 2016 were juniors who will leave for the NFL this season. Ryan Ramczyk - offensive left tackle and T. J. Watt who played incredibly well at outside linebacker this season. Ramczyk was a walk-on. Both will be low 1st round or 2nd round picks. Ramczyk could have been a top ten pick except that he was injured and underwent hip surgery after the season.

I'm guessing that even with the low recruiting rankings and the losses to the NFL, Wisconsin will contend for the Big Ten West title again.