ESPN drops their top 100 newcomers list and I scroll through looking for Wisconsin names and you know what I see? A bunch of transfer portal mercenaries and five-star kids who have already changed schools once before they ever took a meaningful snap. This list is a monument to everything wrong with the sport. Back in 1993 we found a fullback named Cecil Martin who walked on from some high school nobody ever heard of and by his junior year he was clearing holes for Ron Dayne to run for 2,000 yards. That kid was never on any preseason list. He earned his way onto the field by outworking everybody in August camp in the heat when the coaches were watching who wanted it more.
Now we are supposed to get excited about a ranking of kids who transferred twice before they ever played a down of college football. The whole thing is built backwards. You used to recruit a kid in high school, watch him develop for three or four years, and by the time he was a junior you knew exactly what you had. Now these kids commit to a school in June of their senior year, flip in December, transfer again after spring ball, and somehow land on an ESPN list as a "newcomer" to watch. That is not a newcomer. That is a hired gun who will be gone the second someone offers a better NIL package.
I remember when our recruiting classes were built on finding the kid from Wisconsin who grew up dreaming of running through the Camp Randall tunnel. The kid who played high school ball in the snow and understood what it meant to put on the motion W. Now we are in a world where Oregon has five five-stars in one class and half of them will be in the portal again before they ever graduate. I do not care about ESPN's list. I care about finding the kid who will still be here in November when we are in South Bend playing Notre Dame and the wind is howling off the lake. That is how you build a program. Not by stacking transfers on a magazine list.