Wisconsin opens preseason football camp Wednesday. Here are five things to watch.
MADISON – After the Wisconsin football team holds its annual media day Tuesday, the Badgers will open their first preseason camp under head coach Luke Fickell on Wednesday. The team is set to hold the first week of workouts at UW-Platteville and then return to the UW campus for the remainder of camp. Here are five areas to monitor during camp.
Who will man the No. 1 offensive line? Cincinnati transfer Jake Renfro, projected to start at center, missed almost all of spring ball because of a stress fracture in his left foot. That forced assistant coach Jack Bicknell Jr.
to look at several combinations. Renfro should start at center, and Jack Nelson and Riley Mahlman appear set at left tackle and right tackle, respectively. Tanor Bortolini, who worked at center in the spring with Renfro out, should be at one of the guard spots.
Will the other guard be Michael Furtney or Cincinnati transfer Joe Huber? Filling not one, but two, voids on defense Outside linebacker Nick Herbig and nose tackle Keeanu Benton combined for 15½ sacks and 25½ tackles for loss last season. Both are in NFL camps this summer. Do the Badgers have dominant players at each of those positions who can combine to put up similar numbers? That doesn’t appear to be the case.
More than likely, the work will have to be done by committee. Camp should provide the opportunity for the staff to identify the potential candidates. Several freshmen could fill key reserve roles Freshmen cornerbacks Jonas Duclona and Jace Howard were among the players who enrolled early and participated in spring ball.
Both players worked into the two-deep and could be counted on this season. Could cornerback Amare Snowden or defensive tackle Jamel Howard join them? Snowden, 6-foot-3 and 195 pounds, is a terrific all-around athlete who also excels at baseball. How much work he gets in camp will be interesting to see.
UW doesn’t have a plethora of big bodies who can play tackle on the defensive line and Jamel Howard is 6-2 and 320. Can he pick up the defense quickly enough to help out? Questions abound in the tight end room Clay Cundiff arguably is UW’s best all-around tight end when healthy. Unfortunately for Cundiff, he was limited to a combined nine games in the last two seasons because of injuries.
If Cundiff can recover from the leg injury he suffered at Ohio State last season, he should give UW a quality receiver who can also block. The remaining members of the unit are a bit more one-dimensional and the staff will have to find roles in which those players can flourish. Will punter Atticus Bertrams ease the coaches' concerns? Fickell noted at the end of spring ball he was concerned about the work of Jack Van Dyke and Gavin Meyers.
Both players hit the ball well at times but also battled mis-hits. That inconsistency led to UW signing Atticus Bertrams, a native of Australia, in late May. Bertrams committed to USC in 2022 but did not play for the Trojans because of back issues.
Bertrams is expected to be the No. 1 punter. .