{"id":847351,"date":"2026-04-01T15:26:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/847351\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T15:26:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:26:18","slug":"former-wisconsin-football-player-jack-pugh-dead-at-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/847351\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Wisconsin Football Player Jack Pugh Dead at 25"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                          Ex-Wisconsin Badger Jack Pugh<br \/>\n                          Dead at 25<\/p>\n<p>\n                                                                        Published<br \/>\n                              April 1, 2026<br \/>\n                            6:42 AM PDT\n                                                                            <\/p>\n<p>                  <a class=\"js-click-image js-track-link image-lightbox-preview\" data-node-ref=\"tmz:image-asset:image_jpg_20260401_2ee435369f6c449a9af4e83d7c03021f\" data-container-ref=\"tmz:article:2115eeb1-8fca-437e-8efa-9f9184f65143\" data-context=\"{&quot;section&quot;:&quot;permalink&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;image&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p>                          <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2ee435369f6c449a9af4e83d7c03021f_md.jpg\" alt=\"jack-pugh-Wisconsin-Badgers-1\" width=\"728\" height=\"546\" class=\"img-fluid image-block__img-fluid img-aspect-auto\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Former Wisconsin tight end Jack Pugh &#8212; a once highly touted recruit who bravely opened up about his struggles off the field &#8212; has died at 25 years old.<\/p>\n<p>The Badgers announced the news Tuesday, saying Pugh &#8212; who spent three years in the program &#8212; was \u201ca positive light\u201d and someone who truly cared about others \u2026 adding teammates and staff deeply loved him.<\/p>\n<p>Waiting for your permission to load the Twitter Tweet.<\/p>\n<p>Pugh arrived in Madison as a four-star prospect in the 2021 class, despite being relatively new to football. The Ohio native didn\u2019t even play the sport until his junior year at Hilliard Bradley High School \u2026 but still racked up offers from powerhouse programs like Michigan, Penn State and Michigan State.<\/p>\n<p>But behind the scenes, Pugh was fighting a much tougher battle.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"continued\" class=\"continued-anchor\"\/><\/p>\n<p>In December 2023, he walked away from football, citing mental health struggles. In an emotional Instagram post, Pugh revealed he had dealt with years of depression and substance abuse \u2026 admitting there were times he \u201cdidn\u2019t want to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He made it clear football wasn\u2019t the cause \u2026 but said life had distracted him from addressing what he was going through.<\/p>\n<p>Waiting for your permission to load the Twitter Tweet.<\/p>\n<p>Pugh stepped away from the team for personal reasons \u2026 and ultimately chose to prioritize his well-being, writing he wanted to \u201cfind happiness\u201d and build a better life.<\/p>\n<p>He stayed at Wisconsin and earned his degree in 2025 &#8212; a moment the school highlighted in its statement following his passing.<\/p>\n<p>The program didn\u2019t release a cause of death.<\/p>\n<p>RIP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ex-Wisconsin Badger Jack Pugh Dead at 25 Published April 1, 2026 6:42 AM PDT Former Wisconsin tight end&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,49,48,88,9,266,4429],"class_list":{"0":"post-847351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-sports-news","14":"tag-tmz-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116330155975561065","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847351","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=847351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}