By Jackson Dargan

Dezmen Southward is not your traditional Wisconsin recruit. He wasn’t the massive kid who could run faster, jump higher, and throw further than any other kid, he wasn’t the kid who had a giant growth spurt his freshmen year, in fact he didn’t even step onto a football field as a kid. Dezmen played basketball throughout high school, and thought that’s where his future lay, and stayed away from the physical contact of football.

“I didn’t get the offers I was hoping for in basketball, so I decided to give football a chance,” Southward said.

He decided to join the football team after years of begging by friends and family to join the powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas High School football team that went onto an eventual national championship.

After only a year of playing football at the High School level, he began to receive offers from college teams. However, it wasn’t until his classmate, and fellow badger recruit Conor O’Neill signed and informed the UW coaching staff about the highly athletic safety on his team that UW came calling. After a fairly short recruiting period, Dezmen committed.

Only being on campus since late may, Southward is quickly learning, and experiencing what football is like at a Big Ten program.

“I’ve played more football here than I have in my entire life…I’m light years ahead of where I was last year at this point, but im still learning,” Southward said.

His abilities and gains aren’t going unnoticed by the UW coaching staff.

“Dezmens one of the most, if not the most athletically gifted athletes on the field,” UW defensive backs coach Kerry Cooks said.

Although he is redshirting and not seeing the playing field on Saturdays, Southward is still facing a starting UW offense on a daily basis that has looked potent throughout the first few games.

“Dezmen is one of our most physically talented defensive backs, and I cant wait until he gets the mental part of the game down,” Cooks said.

A problem that has arisen is finding where exactly Southward will play. Standing at 6-foot-2, 210-pounds Southward is a big kid, and still has a lot of weight to put on which begs the question if he could move to safety.

“Dezmen is talented enough to play nearly anywhere on the field, linebacker, safety, corner, receiver. I think if he puts his mind to it he could be a star corner, but he would be a great safety. I think he’s a defensive back,” Cooks said.

Right now Southward’s biggest concern is the cold, something he isn’t exactly used to.

“Its cold here, it doesn’t get like this in Florida”