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Wisconsin Badgers' rough 2025 NFL Draft showing is poor reflection on end of Paul Chryst era

The Badgers in the draft were mostly Chryst recruits. Luke Fickell's first high school recruiting class hasn't been draft eligible yet.
Lorin Cox|
Oct 1, 2022; Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Wisconsin Badgers head coach Paul Chryst looks on during the third quarter against the Illinois Fighting Illini at Camp Randall Stadium.
Oct 1, 2022; Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Wisconsin Badgers head coach Paul Chryst looks on during the third quarter against the Illinois Fighting Illini at Camp Randall Stadium. | Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

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Wisconsin Badgers

The Wisconsin Badgers didn't have any players taken until the seventh round of the 2025 NFL Draft.

It's easy to blame Luke Fickell for not getting more out of the team, but a lot of the NFL-eligible talent he had to work with was recruited by Paul Chryst.

Fickell's first recruiting class at Wisconsin came in 2023. None of those players were eligible for the draft yet.

The Badgers players that did enter the draft were mostly Chryst's guys, largely from the 2019 and 2020 classes, with Hunter Wohler as the only one from the 2021 group.

The lack of early picks in the draft from Wisconsin was more of a reflection of Chryst's underwhelming recruiting at the end of his head coaching tenure.

Even Chryst recruits that transferred away to other school didn't fare much better.

Former Badgers wide receiver Chimere Dike was the first pick in the the fourth round, and his quarterback teammate Graham Mertz went in the sixth.

The criticism that's fair for Fickell is not recruiting better talent in the transfer portal. Many of the top picks in the draft finished their college careers at different schools than they started, and Wisconsin's head coach hasn't been able to land the big names.

One of his Cincinnati transfers, Badgers offensive lineman Joe Huber, went undrafted and signed with the Minnesota Vikings.

Neither Chryst nor Fickell is blameless, but the current head coach hasn't had a chance to see his high school recruits fully develop. We're currently seeing the results of the recruits Chryst brought up.

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Lorin Cox
LORIN COX

Lorin Cox is the managing editor of Wisconsin Badgers on SI. He has been covering Badgers sports since 2014, when he was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. He previously wrote for the Wisconsin State Journal, NBC Sports Chicago and USA Today Sports Media Group, and he is a former analyst for Pro Football Focus.

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