Tag: 2023 preview

Wisconsin preseason two-deep depth chart prediction: Offense

Predicting Wisconsin’s offense two-deep:

Welcome to August, where we now are less than one month away from Wisconsin opening its 2023 season against Buffalo.

This offseason has felt like a decade, if not longer. At this time last year Paul Chryst, Graham Mertz, Nick Herbig and Keeanu Benton had just completed Big Ten Media Days and were preparing for the season. Jim Leonhard was employed by Wisconsin at the time and Luke Fickell was at Cincinnati.

Readers of this article likely know where all of them are today.

With the Luke Fickell era set to get underway, it’s time to start ramping up season prep work here at BadgersWire. Up first, our two-deep prediction for the offensive side of the ball:

Where Phil Steele ranks each of Wisconsin’s position groups entering the 2023 season

Phil Steele likes Wisconsin’s roster entering the 2023 season:

No college football offseason is complete without a skim or thorough read, depending on your preference, of Phil Steele’s College Football Preview.

I could take a million angles from the magazine to preview Wisconsin’s season. But Steele always does a tremendous job with in-depth previews of where each roster stands entering the season.

The Big Ten has seen substantial change this offseason. New coaches are at Wisconsin, Nebraska, Purdue and Northwestern, and top programs, including Ohio State and Penn State, have new young quarterbacks.

What isn’t changed? The Big Ten East and West exist for one final season before USC and UCLA join the conference in 2024. That, and Wisconsin has a terrific running back room.

Here is how Phil Steele ranked every Wisconsin position group entering the season, compared to both the Big Ten and the rest of the country:

Josh Pate labels Wisconsin’s Tanner Mordecai an ‘under-the-radar impact transfer’

If Wisconsin wins the Big Ten West in its final year, Tanner Mordecai will be a massive reason why.

Those in and around Madison, Wisconsin have become familiar with the name Tanner Mordecai as the Badgers prepare for the 2023 season.

First-year Head Coach Luke Fickell and Offensive Coordinator Phil Longo needed a veteran presence to bridge the gap while they rebuilt the offensive room. Mordecai fit the criteria perfectly, transferring in from SMU after starting for two seasons and throwing for 3524 yards and 33 touchdowns last year.

To those nationally, however, the addition of Mordecai to the Wisconsin quarterback room wasn’t met with the same enthusiasm as Sam Hartman transferring to Notre Dame, D.J. Uiagalelei to Oregon State or Devin Leary to Kentucky. Many out there still think of Wisconsin as a run-only football team without much of a passing attack.

Badger fans know that is no longer the case.

CBS Sports’ Josh Pate was discussing ‘under-the-radar impact transfers on offense’ on his show Late Kick last week and had this to say about what Mordecai brings to Wisconsin:

“This guy is going to play a big role in determining the outcome of the Big Ten West,” Pate said. “He was the eighth-rated transfer quarterback, so he’s not exactly up there with Sam Hartman…but back-to-back years at SMU he threw for over 3500 yards and had over 30 touchdowns…You got the Phil Longo offense up there. They are going to ask him to throw it around a lot. It would not shock me, with they way they’re going to use him, if he didn’t challenge for those 3500 and 35 touchdown numbers again this upcoming year.”

There are undoubtedly better NFL prospects than Mordecai this season, namely Caleb Williams at USC and Drake Maye at North Carolina. But looking only at the transfers, it shouldn’t surprise anybody if Mordecai tops the list when we look back upon the 2023 season. If Wisconsin wins the Big Ten West in its final year, Mordecai will be a massive reason why.