Luke Fickell and the Wisconsin Badgers had to decide on their storied QB room. The coach phenom sees healthy competition as a key to developing class and culture across different positions. It’s especially true for quarterbacks. But the vision received a sudden block in the path. Their QB1 in 2024, Braedyn Locke, pulled the rug on his commitment. But Fickell knows how to turn his losses into blessings in a jiffy. Just weeks after Locke cut the ties following his two-year tenure with the Badgers, the head coach swooped in two different starting quarterbacks from the transfer portal: Danny O’Neil from San Diego State and Billy Edwards from Maryland. Fans could strongly smell the brewing QB competition again in the lore! After a brief back and forth, coach Fickell now cleared the air on who will be ‘the Guy.’

Initially, after the Locke blow, the QB scene looked to be a mess, with zero scholarship quarterbacks returning to Madison. But as spring approached, Coach Fickell’s third season began to take shape. A month back, at the start of spring practices, the Wisconsin social media team flexed a video of Billy Edwards with the caption “QB1 on day 1.” The message was pretty clear. They don’t want you to keep guessing about their choice for long, heading into this fall. Today, Luke Fickell doubled down on that hint on the Big Ten Network.

“Billy is the guy for us. I think that was one of the things walking in the door that we wanted to make sure that we expressed. I don’t mean that there’s still not a competition,” Fickell took a confident call. “But we wanted him to have a chance to go and lead and understand, this is the guy we are putting in this position. There’ll be other guys that want to compete, and we didn’t want to hold him back from his leadership. One of the things he’s done as good a job as anything is being a leader.”

The Badgers don’t look the same as the team that went 5-7 a season back. They faced a mass exodus with dozens of players hitting the transfer portal. As the counterstroke, Wisconsin searched in the portal and nitpicked nearly as many transfers as they lost to revamp their roster. But if you ask about the game-changer guy in the news, look no further than the elite quarterback, Billy Edwards.

Edwards, a coveted transfer from Maryland, threw for 2,881 yards, 15 touchdowns, and nine interceptions in his first year. In his total three-year stint at Maryland, the prodigy racked up 3694 yards, establishing his status as a pro under the center. The numbers left no room for casting doubt on his talent and the highest execution of the same.

However, despite being utterly hopeful about his new cornerstone in the offense, Fickell vented his frustration over the recent portal outflow.

Luke Fickell sends a cut-throat message to the players who signed off 

Calling the transfer portal chaos would still be an understatement. Take the Nico Iamaleava case. The way it panned out across the college football program sends chills down the spines of the coaches. ‘What is the time we’re heading to?’ The question keeps ringing through the arena, and no answer has been recorded. Wisconsin couldn’t mark its roster safe from the predicted aftermath. The franchise lost a flurry of key athletes in a massive portal cascade, including Tanner Koziol, Mark Hamper, and others.

“We have made it a little to bit to easy to take the easy route,” said Fickell to ESPN. “It’s become so much easier to find a way to go another direction…. Right now in college athletics, we’ve made it a little bit easier to say, ‘This might not be working for you, let’s find another place’.” While the veterans moving out can still be justified, the newcomers, even before they taste the water, deciding to break off is absolutely disheartening. But Fickell seems to cover his rage under logic.

“In order for those guys to go, it had to be a mutual thing,” Fickell explained. “But as a program, I don’t want to find out August 28th or September in Tuscaloosa that they don’t love what they’re doing, they aren’t committed to their teammates, this is too much for them. I guess it’s better you find that out now. So that you can continue to develop the people that deep down inside have it.”

The head coach doesn’t at all give a damn about what has gone. All he is concerned about is what is coming and how strong the base looks like. If there is love, loyalty, and dedication toward the game and the program, it will answer a lot of unresolved questions down the road. Fickell looks to build that culture in the locker room amidst challenging circumstances.