Tag: Will Pauling

Three Badgers crack Offensive All-Big Ten team

Three offensive players receiver All-Big Ten honors

The 2023 college football regular season has come to an end and the Badgers had three offensive athletes be selected to the All-Big Ten Team. Running back Braelon Allen, wide receiver Will Pauling and center Tanor Bortolini were those players.

Starting with Allen, he selected for All-Conference 2nd Team, finishing his third and final season in Madison with 984 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns on 181 carries while also reeling in a career-high 28 catches for 132 yards.

Pauling had an impressive first season with Wisconsin after transferring from Cincinnati ahead of the year, securing 66 receptions for 694 yards and four touchdowns. He was selected to the conferences offensive 3rd Team.

Joining Pauling on the 3rd Team was Tanor Bortolini, who operated as the team’s starting center in each of their contests this year. He made the transition from offensive guard to center in 2023 following Joe Tippmann’s departure.

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WATCH: WR Will Pauling is mic’d up at practice

New star WR takes fans behind the scenes

Wisconsin is coming off of a 25-21 win over Illinois in Week 8, improving to 5-2 on the season. In the contest, wide receiver Will Pauling led the team with seven catches for 95 yards and a touchdown.

Pauling was mic’d up at practice this week in Madison, giving the fans a look into his personality behind the scenes. The wide receiver is one of the more sociable players on the team, which is pretty evident in the video.

His 20-yard score with 7:21 left in the game was a crucial play for the Badgers, but one of his teammates wasn’t very impressed (sarcastic). Check out the rather entertaining video below:

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Badger Countdown: Two transfer athletes set to wear number 19 in 2023

Two new Badgers in number 19 this year

The 2023 college football season is almost here and the Badgers are now 19 days away from their season opener against Buffalo on Sept. 2. There will be two new Wisconsin athletes wearing the number 19 this year.

After two seasons with Cincinnati, wide receiver Will Pauling followed his head coach Luke Fickell to Madison. Over his two campaigns with the Bearcats, Pauling recorded 13 catches for 128 yards while appearing in 10 total games.

Now with Wisconsin, Pauling will look to carve out a more significant role in Phil Longo’s “Air Raid” offense.

The other athlete donning 19 on their jersey this year is defensive lineman Darian Varner. Varner transferred to Wisconsin after three years with Temple, recording 57 tackles, including 10.5 sacks, over 21 games during his two active seasons.

He’ll look to help replace the production of linebacker Nick Herbig and defensive tackle Keeanu Benton, amongst others in Mike Tressel’s defense this year.

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WATCH: Big-time battles between Wisconsin’s WRs and DBs in practice

Possibly the practice clip of the year:

Nothing excites a fanbase and gets everybody prepared for an upcoming season quite like training camp practice highlights.

It’s said somewhat tongue in cheek, as I’m sure I’m in the minority of Badger fans that thoroughly enjoy every highlight that is posted. People ‘fan’ differently. I’m sure many readers of this site share my sentiment that any practice video that gets posted is worthy of intense overreaction.

Yesterday a tremendous clip of Wisconsin’s training camp at UW-Platteville was shared, with wide receivers and defensive backs going one-on-one at the goal line:

The first clip: WR Will Pauling bests DB Jason Maitre. The second: DB Jonas Duclona locks up WR Quincy Burroughs. The third: WR Skyler Bell beats Maitre.

Competition is a theme of the new Luke Fickell era at Wisconsin, both on the field and off. Pair that with a tremendous 1v1 setting on the goal line, and you have one of the best preseason highlights of the year.

In related news: defending Pauling in any setting seems like a nightmare. You can see where the hype surrounding his addition to the Badgers is coming from.

Wisconsin OC Phil Longo had the quote of the year at local media day

A great line from Phil Longo at Wisconsin’s media day:

It’s here. Not the season quite yet, but Wisconsin conducted local media today in advance of preseason training camp beginning tomorrow at UW-Platteville.

These days in the past would often be Paul Chryst expressing excitement for the opportunity to enter another season. There was a different energy entering the event Tuesday.

Not much headline news generally comes from local media day, but there are a few significant quotes to note.

First, defensive coordinator Mike Tressel set high expectations for transfer defensive lineman Darian Varner while offensive coordinator Phil Longo did the same for transfer wide receiver Bryson Green. Both players missed spring practice due to injury, though both figure to play prominent roles in their respective units when the season begins.

The real headline was a note from Longo, which may become the quote of the year:

The thing he loves the most after his wife and kids are slot receivers, a terrific line. The position has excelled under Longo in recent years, most recently with Josh Downs leading UNC in receiving yards last year with 1029.

Will Pauling and Skyler Bell figure to be Wisconsin’s two primary slot receivers this year with both playing prominent snaps. The talent is there, and Longo clearly wants to get the group involved.

Two Wisconsin Badgers break 21 MPH in latest ‘Need for Speed’ ranking

See where the fastest Badgers fell in head strength and conditioning coach Brady Collins’ latest ‘Need For Speed’ rankings:

On Monday afternoon, Wisconsin football’s head strength and conditioning coach, Brady Collins’,ย  released his third ‘Need for Speed’ ranking of the fastest Badgers’ players from this past week.

Related: Wisconsin’s new running backs coach has high hopes for the group

Several of last year’s starters made Collins’ list, including wide receiver Skyler Bell and safety Kamo’i Latu. Although Latu did not quite hit 21 MPH with a speed of 20.99 MPH, he ranked in the top three this week behind receivers Will Pauling and Keontez Lewis.

Lewis was the fastest player in this week’s list with a blazing-fast speed of 21.7 MPH. This was the highest speed in Collins’ rankings since WR Will Pauling recorded 21.35 MPH last week.ย It should be exciting to see what Lewis can do in his second year with the Badgers after transferring from UCLA last season.

It is great to see the progress that Wisconsin players are making in their first winter conditioning program under Collins and head coach Luke Fickell.

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