The Wisconsin Badgers were omitted from ProFootballFocus’ ranking of the top offensive lines in college football entering the 2024 season.
The top 10 list instead comprised of Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Texas, Oregon, Ohio State, Missouri, Miami, Florida State and Florida.
Related: Where every Big Ten team ranks in ESPN’s 2024 College Football Power Index
This ranking comes after the Badgers also missed the service’s list of college football’s top wide receiver corps, quarterback rooms and running back duos.
Understandably, PFF isn’t high on the Badgers after consecutive 7-6 seasons.
But Wisconsin does enter the 2024 season with a combination of talent, experience and potential across its line. Its starting five from left-to-right projects to be Jack Nelson, Joe Brunner, Jake Renfro, Joe Huber and Riley Mahlman.
Nelson and Mahlman are multi-year starters and NFL hopefuls, Renfro and Huber each have high-level starting experience and Brunner enters as a highly-touted prospect.
ProFootballFocus did recently rank Riley Mahlman among the top 10 returning Big Ten offensive tackles. So the service is more doubtful of the rest of the Badgers’ line after several seasons below the program’s sky-high standard.
There isn’t much to argue. Wisconsin has not excelled along the line since 2019. Struggles and coaching changes at the position partially contributed to the end of the Paul Chryst era and eventual hire of Luke Fickell.
Now the program runs an air raid offense, which gives the line an almost entirely-new job description. There is a valid point to waiting to see top-end results from the team before assuming its offensive line play is back to the program standard.
I’d bet on a better adjustment in the second year of Phil Longo’s offense and on the overall talent in the room — especially among the starting unit….
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/wisconsin-omitted-pff-ranking-college-121523794.html
Author : Badgers Wire
Publish date : 2024-06-07 12:15:23
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
