Report: Wisconsin Football TE Tanner Koziol to ‘Intends’ to Transfer Tanner Koziol, Wisconsin football’s big offseason transfer addition, may be heading back to the portal.
The Wisconsin football program seemingly made a huge addition to its 2025 roster in December with the commitment of Tanner Koziol.
The former Ball State tight end entered the portal after a huge 2024 campaign with the Cardinals where he grabbed 94 receptions for 839 yards and eight touchdowns.
The new offensive scheme will feature the tight end position more than the Air Raid did in the two years until Phil Longo.
It seemed like the perfect match on paper.
The four-star player transferred to Madison early so he could participate in spring practice with the Badgers. Early on, word was that he was as good as advertised, making some nice plays in practice.
Not long after, however, Koziol was absent from practice. When asked about it, head coach Luke Fickell said, “Tanner is dinged up and is going through a few things right now, so I don’t know what’s exactly going on.”
Since Koziol has been out, Tucker Ashcraft has been running with the ones in practice with J.T. Seagreaves and Grant Stec getting some reps as well.
Now, BadgerExtra’s Colten Bartholomew is reporting that Koziol hasn’t even been in Madison, heading home over a week ago.
“A BadgerExtra source said Koziol returned home the weekend of April 4. Two other sources said Koziol intends to hit the transfer portal again when it opens Wednesday, but Wisconsin officials said they had no information on the matter when asked Sunday,” Bartholomew said. “A message left with Koziol was not returned Sunday.”
The loss of Koziol will definitely affect the Badgers this upcoming season. With Rob Booker II medically retiring this offseason, the tight end position doesn’t have a lot of depth as it is. If Koziol does indeed enter the portal, the Badgers may be forced to look for some more reinforcements via the portal as well to add some depth.
But for the meantime, it looks like Tucker Ashcraft will be TE1 heading into fall camp.
