[lawrence-newsletter]
D’Cota Dixon came to Wisconsin as a three-star recruit out of New Smyrna Beach, Florida in 2014.
His life story is nothing short of impressive, as he was placed into foster care at a young age and had to overcome a lot just to get to Wisconsin, a story told well by this NFL.com article from this past April.
The New Smyrna Beach High School product began his college career at cornerback for coach Gary Anderson, despite being listed as a safety during the recruiting process, and saw the field early in a special teams role.
After suffering a season-ending injury three weeks into his freshman season, Dixon used his redshirt and returned to restart his freshman season in 2015 for the Badger team now coached by Paul Chryst.
Though he was listed at cornerback that season by Sports-Reference.com, Dixon showed up as a backup at strong safety on Chryst’s Week 1 depth chart and saw most of his playing time still on special teams.
He finished his final year as a backup with 15 tackles, eight of which coming Week 1 against Alabama after starting strong safety Michael Caputo suffered an injury, and one pass defended.
Once 2016 came around Dixon became the starting strong safety for Chryst’s team and stepped into the role as one of the leaders on defense.
He finished his sophomore season having started in every game at safety and recorded 60 tackles, 2.5 tackles-for-loss, one sack, one forced fumble, four pass breakups and four interceptions. His first interception of the season was arguably the breakthrough play for the Florida native as it sealed the Badgers’ victory against LSU at Lambeau Field (a play which was finished by a brutal cheap shot from an LSU offensive lineman).
Dixon’s sophomore season was his most productive of his four full years in college, but he still finished his career with 44 games played, 179 tackles, 8.5 tackles-for-loss, 2.5 sacks, five interceptions, 11 passes defended and three forced fumbles.
All of that was then capped off by being awarded the Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year award after he concluded his senior campaign.
His career was enough to receive an invite to the 2019 NFL Combine, though ended up not being enough to have his name called on draft day.
Nevertheless, Dixon signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent after the 2019 NFL Draft and was having an impressive training camp before an injury sidelined him and eventually forced him to be placed on injured reserve on August 8, 2019.
Dixon’s story is far from over, as he is now set to return to the 2020 Buccaneers as a backup safety and special teams contributor, a place where he finds himself teammates again with former Badgers Jack Cichy and Dare Ogunbowale.