How the newest Badgers are introduced to Wisconsin football's strength program
A chat with Wisconsin's director of football strength and conditioning about how they bring along the newest members of the program
Brady Collins and his University of Wisconsin football strength and conditioning staff have plenty of new faces to learn over the next couple of weeks.
And he liked what he saw from some of the youngest Badgers earlier this week.
Over 40 new players are anticipated to be on Wisconsin’s roster come fall camp in August, and the vast majority will begin their time in Madison this month. Most of them will come from different college programs via the transfer portal, but Wisconsin also inked 14 new 2026 recruits since the December early signing period. And within those 14 incoming, first-year freshmen, 12 are midyear enrollees.
Day One of winter conditioning officially starts next week, according to Collins, but the program’s had discretionary hours for the past two weeks. It appears those freshmen got off on the right foot to start their time at Wisconsin.
“They did really good. I was actually, as a group, very, very pleased,” Collins said Tuesday of the freshmen. “They all could bend. They all move well. They’re all very coachable. Guys tested well, guys ran well. And it was exciting to see, especially, you’re always gonna look at the big guys. Can they bend? What’s their ankle flexibility look like? How in shape are they?
“We know they’re not in the best shape yet. It’s our job to get them there. But as we slowly teach them and mold them into, ‘Hey, this is what would a normal workout can look like,’ but today was just testing and eval and all that stuff, and I was pleased.”
