Indiana landed a commitment from Wisconsin transfer tight end Riley Nowakowski on Wednesday.
Nowakowski is coming off a 2024 season with the Badgers that saw him catch a career high 11 passes for 74 yards in 12 games.
According to PFF, Nowakowski was targeted 13 times and had no drops this season. He played a total of 410 snaps. Only two Wisconsin players with at least as many snaps had a higher pass blocking grade. He did not allow any pressures in 28 pass blocking snaps, and had the eighth-best pass blocking grade in the nation among tight ends with 250 snaps. He did not grade out well at PFF for run blocking.
Like other Wisconsin players who have joined the IU program, Nowakowski was in Madison at the same time as IU offensive line coach Bob Bostad. Their time overlapped for three seasons — 2020 to 2022.
In 2023 Nowakowski played in nine games, making one start at tight end. He had seven catches for 57 yards and a touchdown. He made his first career catch versus Illinois, caught two passes for 31 yards at Indiana, and caught two passes, including a five-yard TD, his first career touchdown, at Minnesota.
In 2022 he played in 13 games on special teams and made three tackles. In 2021 he played in 2 games, seeing action vs. Northwestern and in Las Vegas Bowl vs. Arizona State. That ended up being a redshirt season.
In the 2020 season that didn’t count against eligibility he saw action in four games.
Nowakowski was Academic All-Big Ten each of the last four years.
The 6-foot-1 and 243-pound Nowakowski has one year of eligibility remaining. The Hoosiers and Nowakowski will host Wisconsin next season on Nov. 15.
Indiana will lose starting tight end Zach Horton to eligibility after the 2024 season. James Bomba, Brody Kosin, Brody Foley, and Sam West are all eligible to return.
