Wisconsin football has done very well on first weekend of summer official visits under Luke Fickell
A breakdown of the first four summers under Fickell on the recruiting trail
There have been some great starts to the summer for coach Luke Fickell and his University of Wisconsin football program since he arrived in Madison.
Summer official visits have become the norm for college football since 2018, as previously discussed, and they’ve been indisputably important to the Badgers and the vast majority of other FBS programs in constructing their annual rosters with priority targets. Fickell and his staff have hosted dozens of recruits beginning with the 2024 class, whose trips to Madison were in 2023, and their recruiting efforts have paid off during two particular stretches.
That would be during Wisconsin’s designated first and second weekends of summer official visits that spanned from late May to early June. The program’s already seen the fruits of its labor for its 2027 class from the weekend of May 29-31. It hosted only six players who weren’t committed to the program entering their visits, and five have given their verbal pledge thereafter.
Those include wide receiver Jai Jones (Chandler, Arizona), linebacker Nathan Jones (Goodyear Desert Edge, Arizona), cornerbacks Royalton Allen (Oak Hills, California) and Mekhi Williams (Ruskin Lennard, Florida), and outside linebacker Darin Graham (Chicago Mount Carmel). The lone recruit who didn’t, three-star wide receiver Tavares Powell (Bradenton Manatee, Florida), announced his commitment to Kansas on June 7.
Since all six of those 2027 players have already declared decisions, Badger Observer decided to crunch some data. We compiled lists of those recruits who were not committed to the program who traveled to Madison for the first full weekend of summer official visits under Fickell since the 2024 class. We then sorted out who eventually gave verbal commitments to the Badgers, and who didn’t.
