The Wisconsin Badgers were quite active in the transfer portal this offseason, landing 33 commitments, which was the second-most of any team that didn’t change head coaches.
Among the positions they attacked the hardest was wide receiver, where the Badgers landed five transfers: SE Louisiana’s Jaylon Domingeaux, Oklahoma State’s Shamar Rigby, Minnesota’s Malachi Coleman, Oklahoma’s Zion Kearney, and Louisville’s Eli Adams.
While the Badgers got quite a few bodies, the biggest question was the lack
of Power 4 production. Domingeaux had a strong season, but at the FCS level. In 2025, he caught 57 passes for 802 yards and 11 touchdowns.
Rigby, only a sophomore this past year, caught 25 passes for 351 yards for 1-11 Oklahoma State. Coleman and Kearney didn’t have much production at their respective schools, and Adams was a walk-on at Louisville.
After splashing at quarterback with Old Dominion’s Colton Joseph, the hope was to get him a top transfer receiver, but the Badgers went more on the quantity route to replace the number of players they left this offseason. They did have a few notable retainees, including Eugene Hilton, Chris Brooks Jr., and Tyrell Henry, but this group is one that’ll have to be figured out this offseason.
Head coach Luke Fickell spoke to reporters earlier this month to discuss the team’s transfer portal class, where wide receiver was naturally one of the top questions. What were his thoughts on the position group?
“I think that there are definitely some pieces that we knew we wanted to try to keep in place,” Fickell said about the wide receiver room. “And the truth of the matter is, obviously, that everybody has a decision. And the nice thing about, like I told those guys on Monday night that everybody had a decision, coaches and players included, and they all chose to be here. So now we’ve got to find ourselves more than anything, a way to kind of build all these things together. But it definitely started with saying, ‘hey, we need to find some guys that had some experience,’ preferably obviously stats and things like that, where they played in big games and produced. But that’s not always the case, too.
“Just chasing the numbers, it’s like chasing the stars and recruiting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s easier to evaluate the guys that have really good stats, and it’s easier to watch guys that have played 500 snaps last year and had 65 or 45 catches, as to what it is they can do. But you also felt like we had to do a really good job at making sure we’re evaluating some of those guys that maybe didn’t get as many snaps. Maybe still were not young, but on the verge. You know, hey, who were they playing behind? How many opportunities did they get? And then doing a lot of homework to say, okay, we still got to make sure we’re getting the right ones. And so that’s a combination of things.
“Like I said, it’s easiest, just like in high school recruiting, to find the five and four-star guys because they stand out. And I think even in this portal thing, it’s easiest to find the guys that had 60 catches, but I think finding the right ones and some of that mix is where we feel really good about where we are now. Now it’s time to go to work.”
Wisconsin did go after a few of those players who didn’t have much production with Coleman and Kearney. A redshirt sophomore in 2025, Coleman has yet to catch more than eight passes in a season during his time at Nebraska and Minnesota, but he stands 6’5, 200 pounds with good speed. Now, his third team is hoping they can unlock that more.
Kearney looked solid as a freshman at Oklahoma with eight catches for 128 yards, but took a step back as a sophomore with only two catches for 31 yards. Once again, the Badgers are banking on his potential here more than the production so far.
Even Wisconsin’s returning receivers don’t have much production. Chris Brooks Jr. had 11 catches for 124 yards last year. Eugene Hilton had eight catches for 91 yards. And Tyrell Henry had just five catches for 29 yards. So there are quite a lot of questions with this group. Adding to that is the lack of production coming into the room from the transfer portal. We’ll see how the competition plays out this spring.
