{"id":662684,"date":"2026-01-08T02:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T02:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662684\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T02:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T02:36:12","slug":"wisconsin-football-badgers-land-sec-starting-safety-in-transfer-portal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662684\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin Football: Badgers land SEC starting safety in transfer portal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Wisconsin Badgers continue to make splashes in the secondary, and finally added experience at safety, landing a commitment from Missouri Tigers transfer Marvin Burks Jr. on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Burks, a junior in 2025, has seen action in 36 games over three seasons at Missouri, starting in 26, as he\u2019s been a dependable and reliable player for the Tigers in the secondary. His departure was a bit of a surprise, as he was Missouri\u2019s first returning senior to enter the transfer portal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">This past season, Burks had 49 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, a forced fumble, an interception, and a pass breakup. In 2024, Burks had 66 tackles and an interception for Mizzou.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Wisconsin was in dire need of an experienced safety, having lost its top two players from 2025 (Austin Brown and Preston Zachman). When Zachman went down last year, his backup, Matt Jung, struggled as a starter. Jung profiled as Wisconsin\u2019s top safety in 2026, so it was important to add more experience in a relatively young room.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Badgers may not be done at safety, even after adding Burks and Iowa State transfer Carson Van Dinter, as they could use another experienced option. But, if they don\u2019t add more to the room, here\u2019s Wisconsin\u2019s projected safety room and their eligibility year in 2026:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Marvin Burks Jr. (senior)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Matthew Traynor (redshirt junior)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Carson Van Dinter (redshirt sophomore)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Raphael Dunn (redshirt sophomore)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Luke Emmerich (redshirt freshman)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Kah\u2019ni Watts (freshman)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wisconsin Badgers continue to make splashes in the secondary, and finally added experience at safety, landing a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,2787,65595],"class_list":{"0":"post-662684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-wisconsin-football","10":"tag-wisconsin-football-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115857154730836991","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}