MADISON, Wis. (AP) – There hasn’t been any shortage of talented tight ends at Wisconsin in recent years.
Some of them play on Sundays now, including Houston’s Owen Daniels and Garrett Graham, the New York Giants’ Travis Beckum and St. Louis’ Lance Kendricks.
In time, Badgers coach Bret Bielema says Jacob Pedersen might end up being the best of the bunch.
“We’ve had a lot of good tight ends here,” Bielema said. “He might be the most complete player we’ve had at that position when it’s all said and done. He’s an Upper Peninsula boy who has been raised the right way, works his tail off and is pretty error free.”
And as he showed in Saturday’s 35-0 victory over Oregon State, he is emerging as a trusted target for new Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson. Pedersen caught two touchdowns from Wilson, both on third down in the red zone.
Two games into the season, Pedersen has eight catches for 100 yards, second on the team behind wide receiver Nick Toon. Including his scoring play in the season opener against UNLV, Pedersen has caught three of Wilson’s five touchdown passes this season.
With every catch, his confidence is growing.
After redshirting in 2009, the 6-foot-4, 240-pound native of Menominee, Mich. played in 13 games last season. He stood out on special teams but caught only eight passes – two of them for touchdowns.
“I remember last year, getting my first catch,” Pedersen said. “It’s always tough getting your first catch out of the way. The first touchdown, to get that out of the way. Now I’m just trying to take my game and I’m trying to go from doing the right assignment to doing the right assignment and do it to win.”
Since Wilson arrived over the summer, he and Pedersen have spent as much time as possible working on their timing.
“Russell fortunately got in here, I think, with a month left in the summer, and we were working every day with him,” Pedersen said. “It’s about timing, it’s about chemistry and it’s about knowing where you’re going to come out of a break. Every day we’re working on it in practice, we run every single route as many times as possible, the timeframe. And we’ve just got to keep working on it with him.”
Wilson is seeing that work pay off right away, and expects even more out of Pedersen as the season progresses.
“Pedersen and I have a tremendous relationship,” Wilson said. “We’ve really been working on that a lot. Just throwing after practice, just talking with one another and just trying to get a feel for how we can be more successful. His ability to run and his ability to catch the football are really great, and he’s truly special.”
Things haven’t been perfect, though, as the two got their signals crossed on a route early in the UNLV game – then worked to straighten it out in practice the following week.
“You saw in that first UNLV game – he missed me and I could have gone a little bit deeper,” Pedersen said. “There are all these little characteristics that play into it. But, me and him stayed after practice last week and ran a few of those routes.”
That has been a theme for Wilson and Pedersen, putting extra time in to establish their chemistry.
“Anything we saw in practice that we were a little off or maybe he was a little behind me, maybe I didn’t come off the break right,” Pedersen said. “Anything we would see in practice we would stay after and work on it, and make sure that we got it down.”
And while Pedersen has stood out in the Badgers’ first two games, he says he’s still working on the mental aspects of his game.
“I’m trying to read defenses and I’m trying to get three-step progressions down,” Pedersen said. “The game starts to slows down but you’re still playing fast, you’re trying to make plays and do what you can.”
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Connect with AP Sports Writer Chris Jenkins: www.twitter.com/ByChrisJenkins
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