Zack Baun’s overlooked path to Wisconsin stardom says everything about his Saints future

The New Orleans Saints selected Zack Baun with the No. 74 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. Here’s what Christian D’Andrea had to say about Baun ahead of the draft.

Zack Baun wasn’t a top 1,000 recruit. The former dual-threat quarterback had only two scholarship offers coming out of high school in 2015. By his own account at the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine, defense was an afterthought to him.

That made him the ideal Wisconsin linebacker.

The Badgers’ legacy, beyond “Jump Around” and an assembly line of running backs able to shred Big Ten opponents into ribbons, is built on a culture that turns undervalued high school athletes into the glue that holds their defense together. Baun, with 12.5 sacks in Wisconsin’s 2019 run to the Rose Bowl, was the latest link in that chain.

It took the Badgers five years to transform Baun into an All-American. While his long transition to the starting lineup may raise some eyebrows from scouts, recent history suggests it’s going to make the overlooked three-star quarterback from Brown Deer, Wisconsin, an NFL team’s star linebacker in 2020.

When Baun committed to the University of Wisconsin as a high school junior, he had just a single full scholarship offer. It wasn’t even from the Badgers; it was from South Dakota State University.

By his junior year of high school, he’d only received a grayshirt invitation from the Badgers — a chance to attend classes in Madison while waiting for his shot at a roster spot. This was a step up from the first mailer he got from the program, which couldn’t even get his name right.

“My first letter from Wisconsin said ‘Brown,’” he explained at the NFL Scouting Combine. “That’s kind of been my journey of my career, being the underdog coming out of high school and showing myself and the world what I can do.”

That didn’t become a full ride until the following year, when head coach Paul Chryst took over for Gary Anderson and upgraded him to an official scholarship offer in the program’s class of 2015. Despite focusing on quarterback in his high school career, the Badgers wanted him on the other side of the ball. Fortunately, the Badgers had a linebacker on the roster to serve as an example of what Chryst thought he could be.

“[Current Jaguars linebacker] Joe Schobert ... was the example,” Baun told reporters. “So I’m like this dude is covering, rushing the passer and doing everything? Yeah, I want to do that. I just trusted the development program in Wisconsin had and here I am today. I’m very thankful.”

Schobert finished his Badger career with a 9.5-sack, 20-TFL senior season that set him up as the No. 99 pick in the 2016 NFL Draft. He went on to be the only Browns selection that spring to make a Pro Bowl in his career so far. After starting 49 games the past four seasons, he signed a five-year, $53.75 million contract to keep the Jaguars’ defense stable in 2020.

Baun finished his Badger career with 12.5-sack, 19.5-TFL senior season that has set him up as a potential top-50 pick in the upcoming draft. Where his pro career takes him is unknown. Following in Schobert’s footsteps once more would make him a dynamite pick.

Like Schobert — or another NFL player to whom he’s earned comparisons, Kyle Van Noy — Baun is capable of filling several different roles from the second level. His breakthrough senior year proved he can create pressure from the edge against the hog molly (™, Dave Gettleman) offensive linemen of the Big Ten. He’s also smart and quick enough to identify routes as they develop and disrupt passing lanes (two interceptions, six passes defensed the last two seasons despite working primarily as a pass rusher).

Despite the comparisons, Baun sees himself as a unique product — one built from the influences of two very successful teammates who came before him.

“I got the opportunity sit behind a lot of great Badger linebackers at Wisconsin. Early on I found myself trying to mimic what they do,” he explained in Indianapolis. “I realized I can’t do the same thing T.J. Watt can do. I can’t do the same thing Joe Schobert can do. But I can take bits and pieces off their game and implement them into my own game and kind of create my own style. That’s what I’ve done.”

Watt was a first-round pick. Schobert was a fourth-rounder. Baun, made from repurposed parts of the molds they left behind, could be a late first-round or early second-round choice in 2020.

Wisconsin has been the launching pad where several two- and three-star recruits accelerated their path to the NFL. Baun is just the most recent example.

Here are some of the under-recruited linebackers who became Badger defensive standouts en route to starting on Sundays:

That list doesn’t include former unranked linebacker Jack Cichy, who was a 2018 sixth-round pick of the Buccaneers but has yet to start a game in the NFL.

Though some of these players have bigger impacts than others, there’s no doubting the Badger pipeline from lightly recruited high schools to pro locker rooms.

Baun proved himself as a Big Ten linebacker after a high school career that saw most of his playing time come at quarterback. He’s shown the capability to play both in the middle of the field and around the edge as a versatile run stopper or pass rusher. At least one team at the combine pegged him as a “toy” — the kind of player who can fill any role it would need along its second level of defense.

If his past, and Wisconsin’s, is any indication, making the leap to the next level won’t be a problem.