Wisconsin football freshman LB Cooper Catalano positioned to play in 2025
True freshman Cooper Catalano is making his mark at Wisconsin fall camp, pushing for snaps in a linebacker room with improved depth and competition.
It wasn’t that long ago that inside linebacker was one of the most bankable position groups on the Wisconsin football team's roster.
For the better part of a decade, this was a spot where the Badgers' defense churned out productive starters and NFL-caliber talent almost annually. The last two seasons? Not quite the same story.
That’s why there’s a renewed sense of optimism in 2025 that the room will take a step forward, and a big part of it is tied to a talented pair of starters ready to fill the void and an early enrollee who keeps showing he belongs.
True freshman Cooper Catalano arrived in Madison this spring without the highest recruiting ranking in his class, but with a reputation for production you just couldn’t ignore. The Germantown High School standout set the Wisconsin high school career record with 583 tackles.
Catalano was named the state’s large school Defensive Player of the Year after a senior season that saw him rack up 178 tackles, nine tackles for loss, three forced fumbles, and three picks. Now, through two weeks of fall camp, he’s proving that those numbers weren’t just a product of the prep level.
Standing at 6-foot-1, 233 pounds, Catalano was one of the standouts in spring practice and was a freshman who didn’t look like one. He flashed in coverage, did a good job filling against the run, and carried himself like a guy who belonged at this level. That’s not nothing in a Big Ten defense that prides itself on physicality. And he’s carried that over into fall camp.
Catalano’s early enrollment gave the coaching staff a longer runway to evaluate him, and he’s made the most of it. That extra time in the program, paired with a strong showing in fall camp, has put him squarely in the mix for defensive snaps right away at Wisconsin.