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Season goes from bad to worse for Phil Longo and former Wisconsin QB at Sam Houston State

The Wisconsin Badgers are feeling pretty good about their changes at offensive coordinator and quarterback right now.
Lorin Cox|
Former Wisconsin quarterback Mabrey Mettauer (11) is shown during spring football practice Thursday, April 25, 2024 in Madison, Wisconsin. He and former offensive coordinator Phil Longo (right) are both now at Sam Houston State.
Former Wisconsin quarterback Mabrey Mettauer (11) is shown during spring football practice Thursday, April 25, 2024 in Madison, Wisconsin. He and former offensive coordinator Phil Longo (right) are both now at Sam Houston State. | Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

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Wisconsin BadgersSam Houston State Bearkats

The Wisconsin Badgers are feeling pretty good about their changes at offensive coordinator and quarterback right now.

For Phil Longo and former four-star QB Mabrey Mettauer, the grass has not been greener at Sam Houston State.

The former Badgers OC took the head coaching job at the Conference USA school, and he brought the highly-touted freshman quarterback with him to the Bearkats last winter.

The first two games at their new school couldn't have gone much worse for either one of them.

Last week, Sam Houston State lost an ugly 41-24 conference matchup against Western Kentucky.

This week, Mettauer got an opportunity under center and had one of the ugliest plays of the year in a 38-21 loss to UNLV that wasn't as close as the final score suggests.

It's rare to see a pick six that was also an illegal forward pass beyond the line of scrimmage. The Rebels were ready to decline the penalty before the play was even over.

Both were supposed to be major additions for the Badgers when they arrived.

Longo brought in an Air Raid offense that was going to bring the Wisconsin offense into the 21st century.

He lasted two seasons before being fired by Luke Fickell, who has admitted that the change in offensive philosophy was a misstep.

Longo and Fickell successfully recruited Mettauer to Madison as a Top 10 QB recruit in the country according to ESPN and Rivals.

Badgers fans saw him as the quarterback of the long-term future, and they were disappointed when he left and followed Longo in the transfer portal.

His Bearkats debut was rough, though he did throw his first career touchdown pass in addition to the touchdown he gave the other team.

It's too early to judge just how well Wisconsin will do with its new offensive coordinator and quarterback, who's dealing with an injury, but the Badgers shouldn't be losing any sleep over losing Longo and Mettauer to Sam Houston State.

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Lorin Cox
LORIN COX

Lorin Cox is the managing editor of Wisconsin Badgers on SI. He has been covering Badgers sports since 2014, when he was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. He previously wrote for the Wisconsin State Journal, NBC Sports Chicago and USA Today Sports Media Group, and he is a former analyst for Pro Football Focus.

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