A second Wisconsin player has entered the transfer portal

April 15, 2024
|In Badgers
|By Zach Heilprin

Wisconsin has lost a second player to the spring transfer portal.

Defensive lineman TJ Bollers announced his decision Monday night in advance of the eighth practice of spring on Tuesday morning.

Bollers arrived in Madison as one of the big recruiting wins for Paul Chryst in the 2021 class. He was a four-star recruit at outside linebacker with offers from some of the biggest programs in the country, including Alabama, Notre Dame, Michigan and more. But the Iowa native could never find a home on the outside and was eventually moved to the defensive line in the middle of last season. He was seeing time with the second- and third-team defense up to this point in spring.

His departure hits the depth at a position that didn’t have a ton to begin with. The lone returning starter is senior James Thompson Jr., with redshirt sophomore Curt Neal and senior Ben Barten making up the first-team line in the first seven practices. Behind them is senior Cade McDonald (21 games played), senior Elijah Hills (transfer), junior Mike Jarvis and two intriguing freshmen in Jamel Howard and Ernest Willor Jr.

It’s possible the team could look to the transfer portal to build the depth, but that was also the plan heading into this offseason and Hills was the lone addition, while guys that could have returned — Rodas Johnson (Texas A&M) and Gio Paez (LSU — decided to go elsewhere.

With Bollers leaving there are just seven scholarship players left from Wisconsin’s 2021 class that was ranked 16th in the country — the highest for any class in the online recruiting rankings era. Among those still around include key players like safety Hunter Wohler, cornerback Ricardo Hallman, linebacker Jake Chaney, right tackle Riley Mahlman and outside linebacker Darryl Peterson. Running back Braelon Allen was also part of the class and is preparing for the NFL Draft.

But a number of the highest-ranked players, including five-star tackle Nolan Rucci, Bollers, wide receiver Markus Allen and linebacker Jake Ratzlaff having either transferred, been dismissed from the program or quit football.

Bollers joins quarterback Nick Evers as the two current players that have said they will enter the portal, which officially opens Tuesday and stays open for two weeks.