As the Badgers enter the 2016 season, there is one area that stands out for its complete lack of experience and depth — quarterback. Having that position so low on experience is dangerous, but even more dangerous is the low overall numbers game being played.
Currently, Wisconsin has just three scholarship quarterbacks in senior Bart Houston, redshirt freshman Alex Hornibrook and early entrant freshman
The Badgers already have their 2017 quarterback in the fold in 3-star recruit Jack Coan. But, that still leaves the Badgers short on scholarship quarterbacks with the graduation of Houston following this season.
With him in the fold and UW having a small 2017 class overall, attention can be paid to the 2018 recruiting class a lot sooner than normal. One position that has been an apparent priority has been the quarterback position.
Given the number of offers and the caliber of players being offered already, one has to think this is the year for the numbers at quarterback to get back to normal. That means, don’t be surprised to see more than the usual one quarterback being taken in this class.
That’s because UW has now offered two 4-star quarterbacks in the span of a few months and handed out a third offer on Wednesday as well. First was Old Bridge, NJ (Old Bridge) quarterback Artur Sitkowski, but he is likely to stick out East with Michigan leading the 247Sports Crystal Ball so far.
However, the next two names on the list are the ones that really tell the tale for UW’s recruiting at quarterback for 2018.
Head coach Paul Chryst is also heavily involved in the quarterback position, but in this recruiting cycle he has turned over the recruiting day-to-day to assistant quarterbacks coach and ex-Badger QB Jon Budmayr.
Even before camps UW held earlier this month, Wisconsin made an offer to California native Jack Tuttle. The 6-4, 189-pound signal caller is the No. 5 ranked pro-style quarterback in the 2018 class and that means plenty of competition for the Badgers.
The San Marcos, Calif. native is very high on the Badgers, and obviously UW is high on him as well. It doesn’t hurt that the top 100 overall prospect has ties to the Badgers program, having played with wide receiver Cade Green before.
It has given an edge early on to UW, but with schools like LSU, Missouri and Nebraska also recently joining the mix, things could be changing. Still, Wisconsin is likely in this race for the long haul, and it’s next move at quarterback is exactly why it just may be possible two QB’s get taken in the 2018 class.
With Budmayr out on the trail, he pulled the trigger on a offer to 6-3, 185-pound quarterback Ben Bryant following a satellite camp at Homewood-Flossmoor in Illinois this past weekend. It was the first offer for Bryant, but telling for a number of reasons.
First is the fact that Wisconsin isn’t putting its eggs in just one basket. Offering Bryant showed a lot about his skill level and UW’s confidence in not putting either quarterback out of the mix should one commit before the other is ready.
Sure, competition within the class may not be ideal to landing a top 100 prospect like Tuttle, but Bryant currently is way under the radar and maybe Tuttle doesn’t see it as competition per say. Instead, it could be all about Wisconsin finding the numbers it really needs to balance out its quarterback position.
After all, Hornibrook will be a redshirt junior by the time any 2018 quarterback/quarterbacks would come to campus and the space on the roster would be such that playing time could be there for the taking by the halfway point of any 2018 quarterback’s career.
That’s an attractive feature, as is the potential for walking on to campus and competing for playing time pretty early in a career.
Let’s just see how Tuttle responds to Bryant’s offer, but for now there hasn’t really been much in the way of movement we’re hearing.
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