Column: Wisconsin football defensive line overhaul offers hope, but no guarantees
Wisconsin football added size and experience to its defensive line from the transfer portal, but questions remain heading into the 2025 season.
The University of Wisconsin football program completely rebuilt its defensive line room during the offseason. But will it be enough?
That’s one of the major question marks hanging over the Badgers as they prepare to enter the 2025 season with a front seven that looks nothing like the one that was often pushed around last fall.
Because in the Big Ten, if you can’t hold up in the trenches, nothing else really matters. And last season, Wisconsin didn’t have it. Not in the way you need to hold up in a conference built on downhill rushing attacks and massive offensive lines.
The results were damning.
A 42-10 beatdown in Iowa City, where the Hawkeyes ran for 329 yards, stands out as the low point for a season-long issue.
Wisconsin also gave up 40 or more points three times in 2024—something that hadn’t happened since the last time the program missed a bowl game back in 2001. But what really jumps off the page is the run defense. The Badgers gave up 165 rushing yards per game, their worst mark since 2005—a major red flag.
According to Game on Paper, Wisconsin's defense finished 76th nationally in EPA per play, 45th in EPA per dropback, and 89th in EPA per rush. Traditional stats weren’t much kinder — 47th in scoring defense, 41st in total defense. For a program that built its identity on producing dominant defense fronts and stopping the run, those numbers just don’t cut it at this level.
"Physically, the second half of the season, we couldn't hold up," Luke Fickell told ESPN’s Pete Thamel. "And I mean that in particular on the defensive front.
"I'm not saying it's an oversight, but you recognize what the league is, and at the end of the day, the truth of the matter is that whatever we were doing offensively, we couldn't stop the run. We were very, very small defensively, and we recognized that we had to make those changes. And the idea of getting older, because this is a grown man's league, and if you don't have grown men, it's going to be really difficult."
It’s not a memory the Badgers are running from. In fact, they’ve embraced the embarrassment. Players did 42 push-ups after each practice as a reminder of what happened—a symbol of accountability.
But accountability doesn’t win at the line of scrimmage. Change does. And Wisconsin’s staff finally made some.
They didn’t just try to get better on the defensive line—they tried to get bigger across the board. And the portal helped them accomplish that.
The average weight in the defensive line room went from 289 pounds to 305 pounds on the 2025 spring football roster. In 2024, just three Badgers defensive linemen tipped the scale over 300 pounds. Now, there are seven—almost eight.
Transfer additions like Charles Perkins (316) and Parker Petersen (315) helped drive that number up. Even returning players have made major physical leaps. Dillan Johnson, a former state champion wrestler, is now listed at 312 pounds—up from 293 as a true freshman. Sixth-year senior Ben Barten? He’s up to 323 pounds and expected to anchor the interior.
"We definitely want to continue to focus on size, mass," said position coach E.J. Whitlow. "You’re playing big-boy football, so you gotta have some big dudes with strength, power, and some mass to them to be able to withstand that every single week. So that is a huge emphasis."
However, size is only part of the equation.