[lawrence-newsletter]
NFL experts agree that former Badgers Jonathan Taylor and Zack Baun are near-locks to be selected in the first or second round of this week’s NFL draft.
For some of the other top prospects a first-round projection was expected, as they came out of high school with a high rating and a glowing recruiting review.
Former five-star prospects currently set to be selected in the first round on Thursday night include Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, Ohio State defensive end Chase Young and cornerback Jeff Okudah, Auburn defensive lineman Derrick Brown, Alabama wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, Iowa defensive end A.J. Epenesa and Clemson wide receiver Tee Higgins.
For Taylor and Baun, on the other hand, their recruiting reviews were far from five-star caliber, thus making it even more impressive how they developed throughout their college careers and positioned themselves to have their names called early in the draft.
Taylor, first, came out of Salem High School in Salem, N.J. as a three-star prospect with his only notable offers coming from Wisconsin, Rutgers, Boston College and Harvard. 247Sports listed him as the 24th-highest running back prospect, the 8th-ranked prospect from the state of New Jersey and the 371st-ranked overall prospect in his class.
This ranking did not come with a lack of high school production, as the now-former Badger set the New Jersey single-season rushing record during his senior season. His ranking, then, came more from a lack of exposure than from a lack of his talent or potential.
When Taylor arrived in Madison, as everybody now knows, the second he stepped on the field it was clear that he was a special talent and had the chance to be a Wisconsin great.
Now looking at Baun’s high school ranking we see a similar story, though in this case due in part to a completely different factor.
Baun came out of Brown Deer High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as a dual-threat quarterback with offers from schools including Wisconsin, Minnesota and Indiana. Yes, Zack Baun was a quarterback in high school.
The Badgers actually signed him as a three-star “athlete” with the thought of teaching him a new position once he arrived in Madison. Like Taylor, Baun’s national ranking–4th in the state of Wisconsin, 85th at his position and 1073rd overall–was not due to a lack of talent, but rather to different variables which included Wisconsin high school football players usually getting a limited amount of exposure and the fact that he didn’t even play the position the top schools were recruiting him to play.
So, looking back, while schools like Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson and getting five-star prospects in the door, Wisconsin is doing the same work, though in their case with players who maybe otherwise wouldn’t have gotten the chance to succeed at the highest level of college football.
Now, how common is it for three-star prospects to get selected in the first round?
It isn’t as rare as you may think, as in 2019 more than one-third of the first round selections were three-star recruits coming out of high school and in 2018 that number was 40 percent.
What this means in terms of evaluating players entering college and trying to make it to the NFL is that first, a lot changes during a player’s three or four years at the college level, and second, oftentimes the evaluators just don’t have enough information to get it right. The second reason, clearly, was the case with future NFL players Jonathan Taylor and Zack Baun.