Meet Kahmir Prescott, future Badgers safety

Eric Clark couldn’t name just one play that stood out the most from coaching one of his former standout players, University of Wisconsin defensive back commit Kahmir Prescott. “Oh, shoot, I can name you the whole entire season,” Clark, the former football coach at Northeast High School in Philadelphia, said. “He single-handedly won games. There were times that we were losing going into fourth quarters, and he'll bust out and break a 75-yard walk-off home run. “If we want to compare it to baseball terminology, he has had five or six walk-off home runs, so I'm just gonna leave it at that.” Northeast has produced several players who currently play at the FBS level, including defensive back Tyreek Chappell (Texas A&M) and defensive linemen Ken Talley (Michigan State) and Elijah Jeudy (Nebraska). Three-star offensive lineman Naquil Betrand signed with the Aggies for their 2023 class, and Prescott — who announced his verbal commitment to UW on April 27 — appears to be the next in line to head to a Power Five program. He became the eighth player to declare his intentions to join the 2024 class April 27. Here are five things to know about Prescott, his recruiting journey and what he could bring to the defensive backfield. Highly sought-after recruit On3 currently evaluates Prescott as a four-star recruit and No. 31 safety in the country for the 2024 class. 247Sports and Rivals him as a three-star talent. He previously announced Power Five offers from Boston College, Cincinnati, Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Texas A&M, West Virginia and UW. Prescott disclosed his top five programs as Michigan State, UW, Nebraska, Pittsburgh and Penn State on April 19. A busy spring, including time in the Big Ten Prescott said he visited Nebraska, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and UW in the spring. His mother joined him during his time in Madison. “When I was up there, I watched the team practice,” Prescott said. “I had long one-on-one talks with coaches. I had a little sit-down talk about football with coach (Colin Hitschler). I drew on the drawing board and talked about coverages and everything. Then went on a little dinner, stuff like that. “It was a real chill time out there. I felt it was a family, made me feel wanted.” Prescott returned to Madison for an official visit the weekend of June 2-4. Why Wisconsin? Prescott announced his intentions to become a Badgers player immediately after UW’s final spring practice and was days after the unofficial visit to Nebraska. Luke Fickell’s Twitter account foreshadowed the recruit’s news about 15 minutes prior while the coach still spoke with reporters after the session. “I chose Wisconsin because, personally, the relationship I have with some of the coaches I like the way they teach,” Prescott said. “I like their style of playing. Me and Hitsch, I like the way he coaches. I like his safety room. I feel like he’s the type of coach that is going to be able to build me, make me a better player day in and day out. “Also, like the family-oriented vibe that I get when I'm there. Everybody feels like we’re one. I feel like those are the type of people I can go to and talk about anything with no matter what it is.” Prescott believes he told UW of his decision about a couple days to a week prior to his announcement on social media. He first told Fickell and later Hitschler, the co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach. The relationship between Prescott and the UW staff under Fickell dates to its time in Cincinnati and has only grown from there. “It wasn’t constant texting and talking, but now it’s checking up on me every day,” Prescott said. “Make sure I’m good, asking me questions, get on the phone, talk about stuff that’s going on with me, asking questions about my life.” How he’s been used previously Clark now holds cornerbacks coach and co-special teams coordinator duties at Division III Eastern University in Pennsylvania, but he described how Prescott’s roles in his program evolved over time. “So initially, he was just playing defense, but we would give him a handful of carries every once in a while,” Clark said. “As the season went on, he got the third most carries on the team so he wasn't a feature back, but he still basically led our team in rushing, if that makes sense. That was the way we tried to keep him fresh and make him explosive. And then, there were times where teams would load the box up so much that we would play him at receiver, and we learned that he had natural ball skills as a receiver and he ended up leading us in receiving yards as a part-time receiver. “His junior year he started the season as a cornerback, and just like anything else, we needed more tackling on the back end so we ended up playing him at safety, and he goes and becomes one of our leading tacklers on the team as well. So it was basically one of those situations. Whatever we needed at the time, we just put him in space. We allowed him to make plays. And on the defensive end, the same thing.” Ryan Nase now takes over coach duties at Northeast, and he described the Vikings defense will be “multiple” based on the talent the high school program will have this season. “So obviously, taking over the program, one of the first things you do is watch film from the previous seasons, and he just stands out in just about every game,” Nase said. “And one of the things that kind of makes him special is obviously he can run and he can cover, but he can come downhill and he can really tackle, too. “So our plan is to play him at free safety and, obviously, let him kind of roam the middle of the field to make plays. But at the same time, give him freedom to kind of move around and do some different things inside the box and tackling. Even at times coming off the edge and bringing pressure.” Where UW projects him UW’s current plans for Prescott appear to have him patrolling the secondary for Hitschler and defensive coordinator Mike Tressel in a few potential roles. “They could see me playing the field safety, even coming down playing a little bit of nickel,” Prescott said. “Anywhere between nickel and safety. They said maybe a little bit of corner, but they really see me as a field safety and a nickel.” Clark didn’t hold back his praise of Prescott. “He is the most complete defensive back that anyone is going to find, and I'm not just being biased,” Clark said. “... He can play corner, and he can play safety. He could play in the box as an overhang type guy. He could play a deep middle safety where he can go sideline-to-sideline. He could play a deep half. “This kid is an elite man-to-man defender, which is a knock on some safeties that they're better at zone opposed to man-to-man. He also has fluid hips to play from zone to man-to-man. So he can play in all different levels, all different phases of the defensive back position, and also play elite press man-to-man and elite off man-to-man. I don't think that you find that. Usually people are really really good at one or the other, or two of the three or a combination of some. This kid is gonna be able to do it all.”