The Wisconsin Badgers quickly moved to hire a new running backs coach, poaching Minnesota Gophers assistant Jayden Everett after losing Devon Spalding to the Michigan State Spartans.
Everett had been at Minnesota for one season as their running backs coach, coming over after helping coach running backs at Michigan as an analyst in 2024. Prior to that, Everett had been at Vanderbilt in 2023, but was fired after one year. He has also worked at Tulsa and Akron as the running backs coach.
Everett has been
to quite a few destinations over the years, not being at a single destination for more than three years since 2016. This will be his ninth coaching role in the past 10 years across different teams.
In 2025, Everett worked with Minnesota star tailback Darius Taylor, who had 670 yards and four touchdowns on 4.7 yards per carry. Taylor has one year of eligibility left, and 2025 was his lowest year of production due to injuries.
Everett did have a quality recruiting class in his lone year at Minnesota, landing four-star Ryan Estrada, who Wisconsin had initial interest in, and three-star Ezekiel Bates. Now, he’ll be tasked with being both a good recruiter and developer at Wisconsin.
Everett is the second Badgers coaching hire this offseason, joining offensive line coach Eric Mateos, who came over after not being retained on the new Arkansas staff. We’ll see if there are any other notable coaching changes this offseason.
