Film Room: Why Eric Fletcher must step up for Wisconsin football in 2026
Wisconsin Badgers transfer Eric Fletcher, a former Oklahoma State cornerback, has plenty of flashes on tape, but too many miscues.
Signing four transfer cornerbacks and two transfer safeties, the Wisconsin football team re-tooled its secondary in a big way this offseason.
Still, many of the incoming transfers lack experience, meaning those that have been battle-tested with Power Four snaps figure to be relied upon heavily. One of those players is Oklahoma State transfer cornerback Eric Fletcher Jr.
With 301 career defensive snaps to his name — 271 of those coming last season in Stillwater — Fletcher is the second-most experienced cornerback in this room for new position coach Robert Steeples.
That experience should position Fletcher higher in the pecking order as offseason practices begin. But after watching the film, there are some definite areas in which Fletcher needs to improve (as well as some promising traits) as he looks to re-vitalize his career in Madison.
Below, BadgersNotes.com dives into Fletcher’s All-22 film to evaluate a cornerback Wisconsin figures to rely upon heavily in 2026.
When Fletcher (#13) had safety help over the top, he appeared to play much more soundly and with more confidence. However, when he was on an island one-on-one, the 6-foot-1 cornerback tended to get picked on in coverage. Below, he’s isolated at the top of your screen:
Fletcher doesn’t get his head turned around and is flagged for pass interference. This is physical coverage, and his receiver certainly isn’t open. That said, if Fletcher’s going to be that handsy, he needs to also try to play the ball or at least look for it in the air; otherwise, this is an easy call for the officials every time.
Sometimes when Fletcher was one-on-one, he got lucky. Below, he’s lined up at the top of your screen:
Here, he’s immediately beaten off the line of scrimmage by the receiver’s inside release. The wideout runs a simple fly pattern and easily has two or three steps on Fletcher. Texas Tech’s quarterback puts this ball right in the breadbasket, but the receiver inexplicably drops it. Fletcher should’ve gotten burned for a 65-yard touchdown on this play.
Other times, he wasn’t so lucky:
Fletcher is stride-for-stride with the Red Raiders receiver here, but right at the catch point, the wideout gets away with a subtle push-off, creating just enough space to come down with the deep ball.
Now, should this have been called offensive pass interference? Probably. But that means Fletcher either has to sell it better or not get so easily discarded at the catch point, and reciprocate the hand-fighting. As the last two plays illustrate, Fletcher is too easily manipulated by penalties or the lack thereof.
Still, Fletcher wasn’t a complete liability in single coverage. He certainly had his moments, like the suffocating coverage below:
