What has been an ongoing saga since national signing day back in February has apparently come to a bitter end. According to our recruiting partners at Badger247, one of the most prized signees of the 2015 class won’t be coming to UW this fall.
Badger247 and Ryan Bartow, national recruiting analyst for 247Sports broke the news that 4-star running back Jordan Stevenson has officially been denied admission to the University of Wisconsin for this fall. It comes as a bit of a surprise as head coach Paul Chryst has spoken publicly and emphatically that Stevenson would be at UW in the fall.
Instead, Stevenson is expected to be granted a full release from his national letter of intent and will be free to sign anywhere he would like. There is the slim possibility that Stevenson could chose to head to the Prep School route and attempt to gain admission to UW that way, but those chances appear to be well in the minority at this point.
Stevenson was the No. 17 running back in the 2015 class and the No. 30 prospect in the state of Texas.
It had long been known in recruiting circles that Stevenson had work to do to get in to Wisconsin, but had appeared to do most of that work in the ACT department on his final attempt this year. According to Badger247 Publisher, Evan Flood, the combination of GPA and ACT score didn’t sit well with the admissions department or the chancellor, whom the football program apparently appealed to.
No doubt this is a tough situation for Stevenson, as he has scant little time to get in at a new school or figure out what his next move will be.
This move also illustrates just how crazy the rift appears to be between the admissions department and the football program. Chryst laying it out publicly was seen as a major indicator that Stevenson was all good and things were being done to make sure fall admission wasn’t a problem.
Instead, it appears that either Chryst and the coaching staff were fed bad information or the admissions department changed its mind at the last minute. That wouldn’t be the first time something like that has occurred either, as ex-head coach Gary Andersen ran in to this very same problem and Chryst dealt with it during the final stages of lining up his first class this past February.
There simply are no winners in this situation, least among them Stevenson and his immediate future as an athlete and a student at the collegiate level.
For us at MTB it means re-thinking our “Player to Watch” this fall, as we hyped Stevenson as the guy to watch in fall camp during our preview of the running back position. Given the mulligan of the news today, lets go with the other running back that is in Madison and part of the 2015 class, Bradrick Shaw.
He was a name most didn’t notice up until his surprise commitment before national signing day. It turns out a prudent commitment and acceptance given the news of today. But, it also was prudent, as Shaw’s film is intriguing on many levels. While he doesn’t wow you with extreme quick abilities, he’s got a wide variety of moves and enough power to scare opponents. Shaw is intriguing and someone to keep on the radar for the future of the position at UW.
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