The week leading up to the 2020 Rose Bowl between the Wisconsin Badgers and the Oregon Ducks included this very interesting note on Jack Coan from Jeff Potrykus of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
Finally got #Badgers QB Jack Coan to acknowledge he was banged up and limited in a few games this season. Just didn’t want to make excuses. OC Joe Rudolph said they had Graham Mertz ready if needed but Coan played through it.
— Jeff Potrykus (@jaypo1961) December 27, 2019
There were times in the 2019 season when Jack Coan played like a relatively ordinary quarterback. In the Minnesota game, however, Coan markedly improved. In the first half of the Big Ten Championship Game against Ohio State, Coan was legitimately dynamic, overwhelming the Buckeyes with a combination of accuracy, speed, and supreme field awareness. Wisconsin played its best half of football of 2019 in that game. Jack Coan was central to the Badgers’ evolution before Ohio State’s defense regrouped in the second half and shut out the Badgers.
The way Coan played in portions of the season (the middle third of the season, to be more precise), contrasted with the way he performed at the end of the season, reinforces the notion that Coan was physically limited and then able to become whole again. Many people might have suspected this all along, but now we have genuine confirmation of the reality. This is one of the foremost reasons Wisconsin should feel quietly confident about its chances against the Oregon Ducks in Pasadena — not overconfident, not comfortable, but prepared for whatever the Pac-12 champions might throw their way.
Wisconsin is certainly capable of playing offense the way it did in the first half against Ohio State… and in this game, UW won’t be facing the Buckeyes. The Badgers won’t have to figure out a set of athletes as imposing as the group fielded by Ohio State. This is no knock on Oregon, merely a comparison with OSU, which was clearly one of the top three teams in the United States this year.
If Wisconsin and Jack Coan could give that monstrously talented Ohio State team a legitimate game, they can beat Oregon. If, on New Year’s Day in the Arroyo Seco, we see the iteration of Coan who smoked the Buckeyes in the first 30 minutes, Wisconsin should love its chances.
Jack Coan didn’t want to make any excuses for the times in 2019 when he didn’t play his very best. That is commendable. Coan can now do all the talking he needs to do against Oregon in the first Granddaddy of the 2020s. None of that talking needs to include a single word. A winning performance would be more than enough of a statement.