Is there any chance Wisconsin Badgers quarterback Graham Mertz sees significant playing time in 2020?
This is a question millions of Wisconsin fans are debating as we near the start of the B1G football season, and it’s not an easy question to answer. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
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If you asked fans in February, I think a lot of them would have said there was a high chance Mertz saw a decent amount of playing time.
Even if he didn’t start, I think most of us felt after spring and fall camp that Mertz would do enough to see an expanded role in 2020.
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After all, you don’t bring a guy like Mertz into the building to ride the pine, but coronavirus changed everything for the all Big 10 teams.
With limited practice and tons of chaos, you can bet that Paul Chryst decides to ride with experience more than ever, and that means quarterback Jack Coan will almost certainly dominate the snap count by a healthy margin.
Now, that’s not a bad thing for fans of the Badgers. Coan was a very solid quarterback in 2019. While his ceiling isn’t as high as Mertz’s, he’ll never be a quarterback whose mistakes lose you a game.
Thanks to coronavirus, we might be delayed a year in seeing what Mertz can do. He could see an increased role if Coan falters early, but I think the highly-touted quarterback will have a limited role to start the 2020 season.