The Wisconsin Badgers were omitted from ProFootballFocus’ rankings of college football’s top offensive lines heading into the 2024 season.
The top 10 list is made up of Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Texas, Oregon, Ohio StateMissouri, Miami, State of Florida It is Florida.
Related: Where each 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 the best wide receiver, quarterback and running back duos in college football.
Understandably, PFF isn’t high on the Badgers after back-to-back 7-6 seasons.
But Wisconsin enters the 2024 season with a combination of talent, experience and potential across its entire lineup. Five projects are starting from left to right: Jack Nelson, Joe Brunner, Jake Renfro, Joe Huber and Riley Mahlman.
Nelson and Mahlman are multi-year starters and NFL hopefuls, Renfro and Huber have high-level starting experience and Brunner comes in as a highly touted prospect.
ProFootballFocus recently ranked Riley Mahlman among the Big Ten’s top 10 offensive tackles. So the service is more iffy relative to the rest of the Badgers line after several seasons below the program’s sky-high standard.
There’s not much to discuss. Wisconsin hasn’t excelled since 2019. Struggles and coaching changes at the position partially contributed to the end of the Paul Chryst era and the eventual hiring of Luke Fickell.
Now the program performs an airstrike, which gives the line an almost entirely new job description. It’s worth waiting to see the team’s best results before assuming their offensive line play is back to program standards.
I’m betting on a better fit with Phil Longo’s second-year offense and the overall talent in the room – especially among the starters. But many still take a wait-and-see approach when it comes to the role.
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