We’d all be living in a phenomenal world if the ‘2023’ was deleted from the headline of this article. Graham Mertz’s initial Wisconsin debut came with fanfare that reached Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes. The 20/21, 248-yard, five-touchdown night remains one of the greatest single-game performances in Wisconsin football history.
But that is not the topic of this piece. Both Mertz and Tanner Mordecai made debuts at new schools this weekend — Mertz at Florida and Mordecai obviously here at Wisconsin.
Expectations for Mordecai are far higher than they are for Mertz this season. Those in Madison expect Phil Longo’s air raid offense to open up the field for the SMU transfer to have a Russell Wilson-type season. Unfortunately, Week 1 didn’t necessarily accomplish that.
Meanwhile, Mertz’s Gators fell to the Utah Utes on Thursday night. While he set a career-high in passing yards, it wasn’t the greatest of debuts.
Related: Big Ten power rankings after Week 1: Is anyone good?
We live in a crazy world, because some of the metrics say the two signal-callers had nearly identical performances this weekend.
Graham Mertz: 31/44, 333 yards, one touchdown, one interception, 30.4 QBR, eight carries for -29 yards (including sacks)
Tanner Mordecai: 24/31, 189 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions, 36 QBR, 5 carries for 2 yards (including sacks)
CFBNumbers on ‘X’ compared every quarterback performance from the weekend, lining them up based on PFF grade and ESPN QBR. Mertz and Mordecai were nearly identical:
QB Play for just the games played in week 1. For the Power 5, its a race to break the chart in the top right with a ton of QBs putting up video game like numbers #CFB #CollegeFootball pic.twitter.com/UDd059eAev
— CFBNumbers (@CFBNumbers) September 3, 2023
I do believe that Mordecai will ascend toward the top right quadrant of the graph as the season progresses, while Mertz may sneak toward the middle.
Take away the counting statistics, the current Wisconsin QB’s debut looked a lot like that of the quarterback that just transferred out.