Wisconsin football loses Director of Player Personnel to Big 12 program

Wisconsin football will need to replace Director of Player Personnel Ethan Russo, who accepted a role in Oklahoma State's recruiting department.

Wisconsin Badgers Director of Player Personnel Ethan Russo. Photo credit: UW Athletics

The University of Wisconsin football program will need to replace one of its key recruiting staffers this offseason.

As first reported by Matt Zenitz, Wisconsin Director of Player Personnel Ethan Russo is leaving Madison to join Oklahoma State as the Cowboys’ Executive Director of Player Personnel, reuniting with Eric Morris after just one season with the Badgers.

Russo’s departure comes less than a year after he was brought to Wisconsin as part of a broader restructuring of the program’s recruiting and roster management operation. When Max Stienecker departed for USC last offseason, the Badgers reshuffled responsibilities within their personnel department, leaning into a more modern front office model that mirrored what many programs around the country were already doing.

Russo was hired in March 2025 to help absorb many of the relationship-building, evaluation, and roster management duties that had previously fallen under Stienecker’s umbrella. This move ultimately cleared the runway for Marcus Sedberry to step into the team’s general manager role.

In that sense, Russo’s arrival was less about reinventing the wheel and more about replacing a skill set. Wisconsin needed experience and someone comfortable navigating the increasingly fluid recruiting landscape. Russo fit that profile, bringing with him a background steeped in player evaluation, transfer portal management, and roster oversight.

His path to Madison also came with a personal connection to the program. Russo’s brother, Colin, worked as a strength intern under Director of Strength and Conditioning Brady Collins, giving Ethan a level of familiarity with the culture and infrastructure he was stepping into.

That familiarity mattered, especially for a coaching staff that spent last offseason recalibrating roles and responsibilities in the front office while trying to maintain momentum on the recruiting trail and rebound from, at that time, a 5–7 season that ultimately ended with a 4–8 finish in 2025.

Before arriving at Wisconsin, Russo spent two seasons at North Texas, first as an assistant director of player personnel and then as the program’s director of player personnel in 2024. His work there was closely tied to Eric Morris, who has since taken the head coaching job at Oklahoma State and is now bringing Russo with him. The connection is a natural one.

Personnel departments tend to move in packs, and trust built through shared evaluation philosophies and roster strategies often carries more weight than geography or job titles. It’s hard to blame Russo for leaving.

Russo’s resume also includes stops at UNLV and Utah, where he gained experience across multiple layers of a personnel department, from film evaluation to recruiting coordination to assisting defensive staffs with prospect identification. His time at Utah coincided with one of the more successful stretches in the program’s modern recruiting history, culminating in a Pac-12 championship in 2021. Earlier still, Russo cut his teeth as a recruiting analyst at Rice and as an operations intern with the Indianapolis Colts. These experiences helped shape his understanding of how college and NFL personnel departments function at a granular level.

Working for Luke Fickell at the University of Wisconsin, Russo’s role was less visible publicly but important internally. Player personnel jobs rarely make headlines, but they sit at the crossroads of recruiting, retention, and roster construction. Losing someone in that seat after one season is not insignificant, particularly in an era where continuity behind the scenes plays such a meaningful role in supporting the program’s on-field product.

For Wisconsin, the timing adds another layer to an already busy offseason. The Badgers will now look to fill a role that was central to last year’s recruiting department reset, while maintaining the structure they worked to put in place. For Oklahoma State, it’s a familiar hire that strengthens Morris’ infrastructure by bringing in someone who already understands how he wants to build and manage a college football roster.

As with most moves in this space, the ripple effects may not be fully felt until later on down the line. Wisconsin will turn to its network to find a replacement with overlapping strengths who fits alongside Pat Lambert’s recruiting department. The role can be filled, but relationships cultivated along the way matter and aren’t something you just replace overnight.

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