UW will never be able to recruit at levels of OSU, PSU, etc., at least until they do much more than they have done to this point. I love PC and the Badgers. I know the narrative is that PC is upping the ante in terms of recruiting, but there is no solid objective evidence this is the case, yet. If we use the common recruiting services for numbers, Bielema's recruiting classes were usually in the mid-to-high 30's nationally. Anderson's classes were in the 30's . . . and Chryst's classes are in the 30's, including next years group.
Now, I won't argue that perhaps he isn't doing a better job of recruiting the right types of 3-star kids (especially pro-style QBs and some better speed for the secondary) but the bottom line is that he's still pretty much recruiting all 3-star kids. The 2018 class has one 4-star and no 5-star kids. By contrast, Ohio State has 17 kids above 3-stars, PSU has 11, UofM has 8. Currently UW's class is ranked behind all 3 of those schools and is also behind MSU and Maryland and is only marginally better than Minnesota's class in the Big-10. I have little doubt that PC will do more with that group than the rest of these schools, but ultimately, he will have to get past one of those teams filled with 4 and 5 star kids, and he'll have to do it with the 3-star kids he's recruiting. Now, once he get's over that hump he might have a better shot at a few more of those kinds of players, but academics and geography say we'll never get a bunch of them.
Now, IMO the overall reason we lost to OSU was the play at the LOS. They were better there than the Badgers. They protected their QB better, opened more holes for their RBs, and really stymied the Badgers running game. Was Hornibrook the reason they lost - no. But he was part of the overall problem. A great QB could have been the difference. He is not great, but he is good enough to win you a lot of games. I'm not sure though that absent some other special players around him, that he'll be good enough to get you over the hump. I fully expect UW will win the west again next year but I also suspect we will see a similar result in the B1G championship game. Maybe Jack Coan will be the QB that gets us there, maybe it'll be Mertz, the 2019 recruit.
but everyone knows we need more talent. my question to you fellas is how do we get those 4 and 5s? the state of Wisconsin is not a factory of skill players. How do we get studs from tx and fl to come to UW? How do we get a top Qb out of Cal to come to Madison??