National Signing Day has come and gone and the Wisconsin Badgers have put together a fairly decent class compared to the rest of the Big Ten. In the spirit of looking at recruiting classes compared to the rest of the conference, Badgers Wire is taking a look at Wisconsin’s class on a national level and a conference level. We’ll be including their national rankings and their conference rankings. Second on the Badgers Wire list is a look at one of the conference’s other premier programs, the Michigan Wolverines.
A solid though not spectacular standard of recruiting has been established by the Michigan Wolverines. That said, the program has a lot to sell (albeit not from the past 12 years). The Wolverines have more wins than any other team in the history of college football. They also have 11 national titles, five unclaimed titles, and 83 consensus All-Americans. To say that they’re part of college football’s royalty would not be an understatement. This year Michigan grabbed the nation’s No. 14 recruiting class and the Big Ten’s second-best recruiting class, second only to the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Wisconsin Badgers, by comparison, had the nation’s 25th-ranked recruiting class and the Big Ten’s fifth-best recruiting class.
The crown in this class for the Wolverines was Braiden McGregor, the No. 5 strongside defensive end in the country and the second-best player in the State of Michigan. While the Badgers had a bit of a gap between the recruiting ranking of their top player and that of Ohio State, no such claim can be made by the Wolverines. McGregor’s .9472 value is .0068 lower than Wisconsin’s top recruit, offensive tackle Jack Nelson.
The average rating per player for the Badgers was .8782 and .9035 for the Wolverines. That’s a difference of .0253, much better than their gap against Ohio State. It improves a little for the Badgers next year in terms of their overall ranking (No. 6) and conference ranking (No. 2), but their average rating deficit against Michigan almost quadruples (.0967) and that’s with the Wolverines having the 25th-best class right now and the Badgers having the sixth-best recruiting class for 2021.
The position both classes compare at is outside linebacker. The Badgers signed Nick Herbig (.9360 24/7 composite), a 6-foot-2, 215-pound player out of St. Louis High School in Honolulu, Hawaii. He’s the No. 9 player at his position in the nation and the second-best player coming out of Hawaii. The Wolverines signed Kalel Mullings. At 6-foot-1, and 220-pounds, Mullings (.9333) is the nation’s tenth-best outside linebacker and the top player in the state of Massachusetts. Both of these players seem likely to come in and make a quick impact, perhaps more so with Herbig than Mullings at a really deep program such as Michigan under coordinator Don Brown’s defense.