Wisconsin has hired veteran college front office staffer Marcus Berry into a high-ranking player personnel role, the program announced. He lands in Madison with a title of Senior Director of Personnel Strategy and started in August.
Berry comes over from Temple, where he had served as chief of staff and GM of player personnel. That job put him over roster construction, recruiting, compliance, and the day-to-day of the support staff. Before that he spent six years as director of recruiting at Maryland, a stretch that produced five top-35 signing classes, including the No. 18 group in 2021.
His resume runs deeper than those two stops and includes more Big Ten experience. Berry was assistant director of player personnel at Michigan State, director of player personnel at both Rutgers and Illinois, and he spent time on staff at North Carolina, where the Tar Heels signed two straight top-25 classes. Add it up he has more than 25 years working in roster development at the Power Five and NFL levels to his credit, the latter including internships with the Packers in 2003 and the Jaguars in 2007.
He's a West Virginia grad who got his start coaching high school ball in Maryland, winning three state titles at Friendly high school.
The hire fills out the personnel side of a Wisconsin front office that already runs through general manager Morocco Brown, who most recently spent eight seasons with the Indianapolis Colts, six as the director of college scouting and two as the chief personnel executive. He was a candidate for a half-dozen NFL general manager jobs during his time in Indianapolis.
Berry gives Brown and Luke Fickell another experienced evaluator to lean on as the Badgers work the portal and the high school ranks at the same time.
Wisconsin went 4-8 last fall, 2-7 in the Big Ten, in Fickell's third season. The schedule was brutal, with No. 1 Ohio State, No. 2 Indiana, and No. 6 Oregon all on it, but two league wins is two league wins. The roster saw heavy turnover on both ends of the portal, and rebuilding it into something that competes in the Big Ten is the task Berry and the rest of the front office personnel are facing.
Bringing in someone who has held the GM role, and built really good recruiting classes at Maryland and run personnel departments at multiple Power Five stops is Wisconsin betting on infrastructure. Berry has done the job at multiple places, and understands what that takes, making him an immediate asset in Madison.
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