MADISON, Wis. — On the first day Jonathan Taylor entered Wisconsin’s running back room, with the black tables arranged to form a half rectangle surrounding a white projection screen, he sat near the back and craned his head toward a long wall located to his left. Taylor saw the images of 13 former Badgers greats staring back at him, portraits of past tailbacks hung beneath words spelled out in giant black-and-red block letters that read: WISCONSIN FOOTBALL ALL-AMERICANS. The shrine was hard to miss, which was exactly the point.



Fall camp had not yet started, and few outside Wisconsin’s program knew much about Taylor, the product of tiny Salem, N.J. (population 4,774). He was about to begin his freshman year with what seemed like a high probability for a redshirt season given there were four more experienced running backs already on the team. But Taylor held onto a dream harbored by so many others who walked into that room. He wanted to accomplish enough to...