career, comfortable enough, that he
wants to learn to take the heat off of
the big guys who pave the way for
his lightning runs. “I wanted to
make sure that I knew everything
that I could do to make an offensive
lineman’s job easier, because I know
those guys take a lot of pressure off
of me,” Taylor says.
To beef up his knowledge, Taylor
turned to Joe Thomas, the former
Badgers legend and
Cleveland Browns tackle.
“He was very helpful
in giving me tips,”
Taylor adds. “I’m
looking forward to
incorporating that
t his year.”
ZEROING IN
And so one of the
smartest players in
college football is getting
even smarter—and that might
be enough of an edge to get
him in the door of the
PlayStation Theater in
New York City’s Times Square
this December, where the
Heisman will be presented.
Over the summer, Taylor
worked out in Florida with
Melvin Gordon, the former
Wisconsin running back who
was the last Badger invited to
the Heisman ceremony. (He
finished second in 2014.) They
talked about the NFL, where Taylor
will likely be playing in 2020, and
what it takes to succeed there.
Gordon told him, “If you slack off at
all at that next level, it’s noticed. It’s
not slipped under the rug because
you’re a star player.”
And about the Heisman
specifically, Taylor was able to pick
the brains of one recent winner,
Baker Mayfield, and the player who
finished second to the Oklahoma QB
in the 2017 voting, running back
MAKING
MOVES
Taylor, a state
champion
sprinter while
at Salem (New
Jersey) High,
took to the
track this spring
after earning
the nation's top
award for a
running back.Bryce Love. The three chatted at that
year’s college football awards, when
Taylor was just a freshman who’d
burst onto the scene. “The thing they
mentioned to me about their awards
is that they were just going out there
trying to win games,” he says. “So
now I’ve taken that into
consideration. I feel like as long as
I’m going out there trying to win
games, everything will fall
into place.”
This fall, that’ll be
Taylor’s sole focus as
the most talented
player on a rebuilding
offense, for a team
that hopes to
improve upon its
8–5 record of a
season ago. Track is
in the rearview mirror.
Yoga will take a backseat.
Taylor may even cut down
on the French toast with
strawberries and bananas from
Sunroom Cafe in Madison,
his favorite dish in town.
“I don’t know what J.T.’s
numbers will be,” Wisconsin
coach Paul Chryst says, “but
I think there’s still things he
can [work on]. That’s what I
love about him; he sees that
he can still improve on it, and
there’s things he can still get
better at.”
Taylor’s ability to keep
improving—he went from 1,977 yards
as a freshman to 2,194 yards last year
and upped his average yards per
carry from 6.6 to 7.1—has earned him
the trust of his coaches and the level
of freedom it took to be allowed to
run track in the spring. There was
no doubt that he’d do anything but
use a second sport to improve his
first. And now the rest of the
country has another reason
to fear the Badgers’
running back. n