Hello folks, welcome to the New Year! I’m in dire need of flipping of the calendar because my Wisconsin boys didn’t quite get the job done. Not only did the Badger football team not meet the CFP expectations Badger nation and I had set for them, but they lost Paul Bunyan’s Axe for the first time in 15 years. Add on top of that the fact that the Packers are awful and the Badger basketball team lost to Western Kentucky last night… Things have been better. The resolution I am setting for the 2019 Wisconsin Badger Football team can be summed up by one word: Change.
Why “Change?” you might ask? I’ll tell you why my curious friend! The Badgers need to change the offense a little more specifically. Change needs to happen because according to Rivals.com the 2nd best Pro-style quarterback is coming to Wisconsin. The 6’4″, 205 pound Mosiah that is Graham Mertz is coming to Wisconsin. Mertz committed to Wisconsin during his junior year of high school. In June of this year he tweeted out that his recruitment was officially closed down and he was going to be a Badger. Since then, he has worked relentlessly on the field and on Twitter. No, his Twitter isn’t filled with highlights of himself and the inspirational quotes people get tired of seeing. It’s filled with quoted tweets of fellow Badger prospects that Mertz nearly begs and pleads to bring their talents to Madison.
Change needs to happen because we have a recruiting class of 19 very talented kids coming to Madison who could very well change the course of Badger football history. Change needs to happen because we are bringing in a quarterback who played 47 quarters of football in his senior year of high school and threw 51 touchdowns. Yeah, you read that correctly, not a typo I promise. That being said it will be hard to justify changing the offensive style when your running back just won the Doak Walker award and ran for the most yards of anybody in the nation. Not to mention the fact that with 2,000 more yards next year, a mark he got too with ease, he will hold the record for career rushing yards in the NCAA over Donnell Pumphrey and former Badger great Ron Dayne. So how do you change the offense to accommodate this?
You ask another great question my curious friend! Paul Chryst and Joe Rudolph HAVE to find a better quarterback coach than Jon Budmayr for starters. The guy has so little college playing experience, they don’t even list it in his bio on the Badger football website. Get somebody in there who can teach the position and has seen actual game experience instead of a guy who won a letter with the team because he was a senior and was a backup. The next step would be opening up the playbook. The reason it hasn’t been opened up already is because Alex Hornibrook can’t consistently make the big boy throws. Now he’s dealing with injuries and living right on campus like I do, there are rumblings. I’ve heard that some concussions and his inability have gotten to his head, no pun intended. I never wish ill upon a person or player whether they play for anybody in Minnesota or I have beef with that team for whatever reason so I hate to see Hornibrook’s career turn like this even though his play has led to struggles for the team.
Change needs to happen with the offense because Paul Chryst somehow tricked this kid who runs a spread offense, very well I might add, to come to a ground and pound school. I understand the shotgun isn’t an original idea to the game of football and you can throw the ball from under center, but how do you get this kid comfortable with new footwork and handing the ball off 20+ times a game? I think Mertz could be the version of Russell Wilson we’ve needed since Wilson was in school for that one magical year in Madison. He could easily sling it with the Andrew Luck’s, Colt Brennan’s, and Matt Leinhart’s who are among some of the most efficient and best collegiate quarterbacks of all-time.
Change can be a good thing. Every New Year we all think of some way to change ourselves. Make ourselves better in some way, shape, or form. We don’t always follow our resolutions to completion, but in order for the Wisconsin Badgers to remain a perennial powerhouse and national contender, we have to follow the resolution of change to the end. I hate to think that the future of this program and the economic boom that has been sustained in Madison over the last 20 years or so because of the success of the athletics at the university could be hanging in the balance. The terrifying thing is that the fate could be resting on the shoulders of a stubborn middle aged man and a kid who isn’t even 20 years old yet.