Wisconsin Football: Get to Know your Badgers

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 12:01 p.m. ET

Fansided, Tyler Hunt/FanSided via Badger of Honor

Getting to Know Wisconsin Football Commit Andrew Van Ginkel

In the second installment of the Get to Know Your Badgers Series, we look at another one of the Badgers big recruits in the class of 2017 Andrew Van Ginkel who is a former native of Rock Valley, Iowa. Van Ginkel is not your prototypical high school recruit, as he will be coming to Wisconsin after spending a brief amount of time at the University of South Dakota before eventually landing at Iowa Western Community College where he completed a season with the Reivers. During his time at Iowa Western Linebackers Coach Tim Tibesar closely recruit Van Ginkel and eventually defensive line assistant Inoke Breckterfield landed the star prospect.

Van Ginkel is the #1 prospect in the state of Iowa, listed as a four star recruit by Rivals.com. At 6’4″ Van Ginkel has played a multitude of positions in the past including Wide Receiver, Safety, Defensive End and even some quarterback. While that certainly shows athleticism on his part, he will line up at outside linebacker for Wisconsin. As a JUCO transfer, Van Ginkel comes into Wisconsin with two years of eligibility left at Wisconsin. With the departure of TJ Watt, Van Ginkel will likely step into the rotation at an already deep linebacker position as a pure pass rusher with length similar to Watt. Van Ginkel will step into a position with stiff competition from both Garrett Dooley and Zack Baun. Depsite the depth, Van Ginkel’s skill set will get him on the field quite a bit next fall.

Van Ginkel was highly sought after by many different schools, as he had offers from schools such as Iowa, California, Louisville, Nebraska, and West Virginia before narrowing down his decision to two schools. Van Ginkel visited Iowa, but eventually committed to Wisconsin (Good day for Wisconsin) on Halloween via Twitter. His twitter handle is @AndrewVanGinkel, be sure to give one of the newest Badgers a follow!