Wisconsin Fall Camp Preview: Defensive Line

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin opens up fall camp at the end of July, beginning a critical third season for head coach Luke Fickell. Badger Blitz breaks down the defensive line room for the Badgers going into the fall…

Projected Depth Chart

1. Ben Barten – Sr.

2. Parker Petersen – Sr.

3. Brandon Lane – Sr.

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1. Jayviar Suggs – Sr.

2. Charles Perkins – Jr.

3. Dillan Johnson – So.

Wisconsin is going to feature a lot of new faces on its defensive line, and for good reason. The Badgers came into 2025 with a mindset of being bigger, more physical, and nastier up front. UW signed three transfer defensive lineman — Suggs, Perkins, and Petersen.

“Before you talk schematic changes, I think you need to talk physical and mental changes,” said defensive coordinator Mike Tressel. “We played very good football against 11 personnel and spread out teams. I feel like we knew exactly what we were doing, had great confidence, but when people started getting into bigger personnel, we didn’t play the way we need to. We did not stop the run the way we need to.

“The mentality of stopping the run is first. The physicality of the game of football, which is always what this place has been about, and then you can get into some of the schematic things.”

Suggs and Perkins appear very valuable to what the Badgers want to achieve this fall. Suggs began his career at Grand Valley State before taking his talents to LSU. He didn’t put up big numbers in 2024, but Suggs played in all 12 games for the Tigers, recording 2.0 sacks. Perkins might be the best player UW signed from the portal. An All-OVC player as a sophomore, Perkins posted 40.0 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and a whopping 19.0 pressures in the middle while at UT-Martin.

Taking advantage of an extra season, Barten is back for another go-round as a senior. Quietly, Barten is the glue of UW’s defense. In 2024, he tallied 22.0 tackles and five pass breakups during his first season as a starter. Barten does a lot of the dirty work that doesn’t show up in the stat sheet. Barten will pair with Petersen, who comes over from Tulane. As a junior, Petersen came up with 21.0 tackles, 4.5 for loss, and 2.5 sacks for the Green Wave.

Number to Know – 692

Wisconsin lost its last five games of the season. Three of those were trophy games against Big Ten rivals Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota. In those three defeats, the Badgers surrendered a whopping total of 692 rushing yards, including 329 in a loss at Iowa. During that stretch, UW’s opponents averaged almost six yards per carry. Adding to their bigger, stronger defense, the Badgers are also adding edge rushers to the fold — defensive ends who can play standing up or with their hand in the dirt.

“One thing I’m seeing is a lot of confidence in the defensive front’s ability to be tough and difference makers,” said Tressel. “Within their room, you can see there’s some great confidence in those guys. They are bigger, but I’m really proud of how physical they’re playing. They’re not just bigger, they have a little bit of twitch to them too, which is really, really exciting. When you can put some size and some twitch together, that’s where there’s really problems, because the offensive line doesn’t know if they’re going to get hit in the mouth, or if they’re going to get shook a little bit.”

Potential Surprise

This is going to be a very deep and competitive rotation this season. It’s going to be difficult for someone outside of the top 5-6 to get meaningful snaps. However, the last two weeks of spring were very hard to ignore for Jamel Howard.

Howard had been a forgotten man to some degree. One of the few members of Fickell’s first recruiting class still in the program, Howard hit the transfer portal after last season only to remove his name and return to Wisconsin. He’s since come back hungrier and was making a ton of plays behind the line of scrimmage during the back end of spring ball.

Youngster to Watch

With all of the new additions and returning players, Johnson seemed to get lost in the shuffle during spring ball. This was an instant impact true freshman for Wisconsin in 2024. Pound-for-pound, Johnson is one of the strongest players the Badgers have. A former state champion wrestler, Johnson was a huge recruiting win for UW, who went hard after the former three-star prospect and flipped him from Northwestern. Mostly used near the goal line, Johnson had 7.0 tackles last season.

“He really dove in, focused on football, and put on the mass,” defensive line coach E.J. Whitlow said. “You can tell that it’s shown a tremendous amount. He’s about 310 and 312 pounds. Playing in that league, you need that size. He’s hard to move. He’s dense, strong…one of the strongest guys we’ve got, and it shows. Just excited about his growth and continued development.”

2025 Forecast

I like the steps that Wisconsin has taken during the off-season. Collectively, is this group a top-five unit in the Big Ten? Probably not. But the Badgers are getting back to what made them successful historically on the defensive side of the football, and that starts with owning the line of scrimmage. UW gave up 99 yards rushing or more in every single game last season. Because of that, they weren’t getting teams in third-and-longs, the sack numbers were almost non-existent, and the turnovers dropped off. By comparison, the Badgers held five opponents under 100 yards rushing in 2023 and eight foes under that total in 2022.

As mentioned, Perkins brings a nasty attitude to the middle of the defense. He’s someone you just feel that presence with. Suggs is right there alongside him. I would anticipate those two help turn things around. Petersen and Barten are solid glue guys who can hold the point of attack. Lane also started to turn a corner in spring ball and it’ll be interesting to see where he fits in after not making the impact we expected in 2024 when he came over from Stephen F. Austin.

It’s hard not to improve upon the 9.0 tackles for loss and 4.0 sacks this group collectively last season. Even so, I’d expect a greater mentality of getting behind the line and creating havoc plays from the defensive linemen this fall.

Just given the number of bodies and various fronts Wisconsin throws out, I wouldn’t get too caught up in the depth chart. Like outside linebacker and edge rusher, the Badgers will rotate constantly this fall and there’s probably still room for Johnson and Howard to get snaps because of that.

“We want to have a multitude of guys to play and keep guys fresh,” said Whitlow. “Just because there’s more guys, you don’t want to run guys into the ground. Nobody is fresh week 12 if you just beat them down. I think guys checking their egos at the door, understanding it’s a unit, and it’s not just about ‘me.’ The guys have done a great job of buying into that mentality that if one of us is successful, everyone is successful.”