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Competition is high, but so is brotherhood for Badgers’ throwers
BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Jack Coan was raised on Long Island as a New York Jets fan. He remembered having "Jets stuff all over the walls" of his bedroom. Danny Vanden Boom became a Boston Red Sox fan after a family trip to Fenway Park. He was in his early teens, impressionable and "fell in love with the history of the club."
Chase Wolf grew up in Loveland, Ohio — 30 minutes from Cincinnati — and has been an unabashed fan of the Reds and Bengals through thick and mostly thin. "More power to him if he's cheering for those guys," Vanden Boom playfully chided.
Graham Mertz is from Overland Park, Kansas — 20 miles from Arrowhead Stadium where a second uncle, Dustin Colquitt, a 14-year veteran, punts for the Chiefs. "For me, it's the Chiefs and Packers," Mertz said of his allegiances. "My grandma has lived in Green Bay."
Wisconsin's four quarterbacks are big fans.
Of others.
And each other.
"They're good people," Coan said, "and three of my best friends."
"Bunch of good dudes in the room," said Vanden Boom. "We really care about each other."
"The whole quarterback group is like brothers," Wolf said. "There's a great bond."
"We all kind of have the same mindset," said Mertz, "when it comes to life and football."
That unity extends to their viewing habits.
None of them are currently watching "Game of Thrones" — the immensely popular HBO series which is in its final season. "We get a lot of hate on that from the big guys over there," Mertz said pointing in the direction of the offensive line in one corner of the field. "They're all into it."
Wisconsin quarterbacks coach Jon Budmayr can't relate to fire-breathing dragons or the Iron Throne, either. When he finds the spare time, he's more inclined to watch reruns of "The Office" on Netflix ("Love it, makes me laugh, stupid comedy.").
Mostly, of course, he has been watching his four QBs get closer over 15 spring practices.
Their growth — individually and collectively — is no laughing matter.
"They are a tight unit, and it's not just lip service," Budmayr said. "They care about one another. With that, there's a great sense of competition among them, too, whether it's on the field or it's on the dart board in the quarterback room or it's on the ping pong table in the locker room.
"They thrive on that competition. Yet, they are very close."
looks like all four share one more thing: bad left knees.
It helps explain the budding chemistry between Coan, Vanden Boom, Wolf and Mertz.
"I feel like we're meshed pretty well," said Coan, a junior. "Whenever we're on the field, we're always watching and trying to learn from each other. Whenever we come back from a play, we're always talking to each other about what we saw … we'll bounce ideas off each other and ask questions."
It all began to fall into place for them prior to their first spring practice together in late March.
"We just kind of clicked," said Mertz, a true freshman. "We knew it just wasn't one guy versus the other guy. We were all one group and we were going to grow as a group. That was the thing that brought us a lot closer."
Wolf, a redshirt freshman, cited another example from last October when Coan got his first career start. "I remember after the game," Wolf said of the Northwestern loss, "Danny and I went up to Jack and hugged him and said we loved him. That's a great component to have in the quarterback room."
Vanden Boom, a redshirt sophomore, confirmed the end game: "I feel we're all in it for each other and we're all in it for this team … we all want to become better and we want our group as a whole to become better so we can produce a guy — ultimately come Saturdays — that can get the job done."
Saturdays and Fridays. The Badgers open the season Friday, Aug. 30 at South Florida. For the most part, the quarterbacks have shared the workload during spring drills. But, obviously, it will be impossible for everybody to get the same amount of snaps during training camp.
"We've had conversations about that," Budmayr said. "Coming out of the spring at any position, but quarterback specifically, you earn the right for reps in the fall. That will be part of the evaluation process. A lot of what they did in the spring will determine how those reps are divvied up in fall camp."
Based on his overall experience, including victorious starts over Purdue in triple-overtime and Miami in the Pinstripe Bowl, Coan took the most snaps with the No. 1 offense. "I like what Jack does," said UW coach Paul Chryst. "He's learning from the experiences that he's had last year."
Graham Mertz (5) and Chase Wolf (2)
Chryst has repeatedly stressed that he's not worried about a quarterback depth chart.
"We're going to have a starting quarterback," he said, "when we play our first game."
For now, he's content on letting the process move at its own pace and play itself out. "I've liked the way they've approached this spring," Chryst said of Coan, Vanden Boom, Wolf and Mertz. "Each one has gotten something out of the spring, which is really important."
From this standpoint, Budmayr detailed what that "something" was for Coan.
"His goals were to come out of the spring a better decision-maker with the football," he said. "We also wanted to increase his knowledge situationally on what we're trying to accomplish as an offense, whether it's normal down and distance, third down, red zone, two-minute situations.
"He wanted to grow in those areas, and I thought he did.
"He'd come off the field and understand the whys and why nots of what he did."
On the points of emphasis with Vanden Boom, Budmayr said, "It was understanding ball placement — what windows he can throw into and what windows he can't. Coming out of the spring, I thought he gained a better understanding of what that was, and who he was as a thrower."
Wolf and Mertz had similar challenges in that both were experiencing their first spring.
"Chase was on the scout team all last year and he was running everyone else's offenses," said Budmayr, a former UW quarterback. "This is really his first time having extensive work with our playbook.
"Chase's big thing was the ability to create a sense of rhythm and timing with his feet while not taking away from his playmaking ability because that's one of the strengths that he has — the ability to extend plays. I wanted him to calm down his feet and I thought he did a great job."
Budmayr confirmed Mertz had the most on his plate, hence the most to digest.
"The first thing I told Graham when he got here was that we're going to get this playbook installed," he said. "There were foundational things that he had to get down … footwork, spitting out a call, understanding signals. Those other guys had been through that phase."
Because of his high recruiting profile, Mertz has come under intense fan scrutiny. But in the quarterback room, he's just one of the guys competing for playing time.
"He throws a great ball," Coan said. "The best thing is that he's a really good kid."
"Graham makes everyone better," said Vanden Boom. "He adds to the value of the room."
"He's fearless," Wolf said. "He came in here with the confidence to win the starting job."
In the same breath, Wolf noted, "Just like every one of us has."
That mindset is one of the many things that these quarterbacks share.
"We're all kind of the same type of guy," Mertz said. "It's what makes us a great group."
Although Mertz was unable to return to Kansas for prom at Blue Valley North High School, his girlfriend visited him that weekend in Madison. "I couldn't imagine being home right now and not going through spring ball," he said. "For any kid looking at graduating early, it's the smartest thing to do."
As for his own notoriety as a prep star — he threw for 3,886 yards and a state-record 51 touchdowns during his senior year — Mertz insisted, "It's a clean slate. It's college ball. None of that other stuff matters. It's just about winning now … I just try to be a normal guy."
Another shared trait among these quarterbacks. "We're a humble, down-to-earth group," Vanden Boom said. "There are no egos at all."
Nobody appreciates that more than Budmayr. "It's a reserved group by nature," he said. "But they've all got a little bit of something they bring to the table."
All of which sets up for a competitive training camp.
