Wisconsin Badgers head coach Luke Fickell watches a drill during fall training camp at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison on Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. Mike De Sisti / The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

New college football salary cap will make recruiting and developing even more important for Wisconsin Badgers

Originally posted on Wisconsin Badgers on SI
By Lorin Cox | Last updated Jun 10, 2025 6:54 PM ET

The NCAA's legal settlement is bringing a new era of college sports where programs like Wisconsin will play players directly through revenue sharing.

That will come with a salary cap that cover all Badgers sports, and it will be a challenge for the athletic department to spread the money around across multiple programs.

It's going to make Luke Fickell's recruiting and player development paramount for long term success.

Big-name players are going to command a greater portion of that salary cap than new up-and-comers.

The transfer portal could get particularly difficult, with teams limited on how much they can spend on potential additions.

Look no further than the quarterback position, where it might be too expensive to keep bringing in experienced starters from other programs the way Fickell has in recent years.

On3 reported that teams don't expect the QB price to go down, even with a salary cap in place. Teams that spend a lot at that position won't have as much money left to support the rest of their roster and other sports.

NIL collectives & general managers don't see the price for top starting QBs dropping below $2 to $4 million annually in the rev-share era.

"If you wind up having to pay a significant portion of the salary for a quarterback out of the rev share, it’s going to crush your… pic.twitter.com/kf44dD6Ds7
— Pete Nakos (@PeteNakos_) June 9, 2025

That will make it even more important for Wisconsin to recruit quality high school quarterbacks and develop them into starters.

Easier said than done, but the key difference with the salary cap going into place will be that different positions will be valued differently, so recruiting staffs may have to focus their efforts in specific areas to get the most value for the roster.

It's going to be a whole new world in college football, and we're only just starting to understand what it will look like.