Anonymous Big Ten Coaches Slam Wisconsin: 'I Don't Care Who Your QB is'

It's no secret that Wisconsin football is flying significantly under the radar ahead of the 2026 season.

Following a 4-8 campaign, the Badgers' worst season on the gridiron since 1990, Wisconsin knew it needed to make changes. And after signing a 30-plus player transfer portal class, plus some key coaching upgrades, the Badgers appear to have positioned themselves to improve, if perhaps only marginally, this fall.

Still, it's going to take the rest of the country — and the Big Ten — some coinvincing.

Athlon Sports recently complied its list of Big Ten coaches speaking anonymously about each team in the conference. The takes on Wisconsin didn't hold back:

Issues run deeper than QB?

Wisconsin quarterback Danny O'Neil (18) is tended to after being injured. | Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

“They scored 81 points in nine conference games. I don’t care who your quarterback is. That speaks to a lot of bigger issues than just the quarterback position. There are teams in the conference who could not throw a single pass and score more than nine points per game. It also speaks to, defensively, your ability to make turnovers, and special teams, your ability to make kicks. I thought it was a whole package thing.”
Anonymous Big Ten coach on Wisconsin.

On one hand, it's hard to argue with this take because Wisconsin certainly had plenty of extraneous issues outside of quarterback.

On the other hand, quarterback was absolutely the biggest and most pertinent problem for the Badgers. More often than not, the play at that position was comically bad, and the constant flipping between Danny O'Neil, Carter Smith and Hunter Simmons felt like the definition of insanity.

Wisconsin's offensive line was a complete disaster as well, with constant shuffling, no cohesion and at times, a center who struggled to execute a shotgun snap.

The defense, especially the secondary, had its fair share of issues. And as this coach astutely pointed out, special teams could use some work as well. But to say "I don't care who your quarterback is" is pretty ignorant of the abysmal play the Badgers got from their gunslingers last fall. Only four FBS teams had a worse passing offense than Wisconsin last season in terms of yards per game, and three of them run the triple option offense.

The notion that Wisconsin has other areas to fix is valid, but this comes across as pretty dismissive to transfer quarterback Colton Joseph. The jury is certainly still out on the former Old Dominion Monarch, but if you watched the Badgers suffer through the horrendous quarterback play they did last season, you know how arrogant it is to dismiss what Joseph can bring to this team.

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