The Preseason Colton Joseph Disrespect is Getting Ridiculous

Wisconsin football not only has its most exciting quarterback in the Luke Fickell era — it has arguably one of the most exciting dual-threat quarterbacks in the country with Old Dominion transfer Colton Joseph, who racked up 5,905 total yards and 56 touchdowns the past two seasons.

And yet, Joseph has been mostly an afterthought this season among mainstream college football media. In many cases, it's almost felt dismissive, like the Badgers get a nice pat on the pack for landing a Sun Belt quarterback.

It's hard to blame the national media for not being too high on Wisconsin's offense — particularly its passing game, which ranked 132nd out of 138 FBS teams last season in yards per game, dead last in the Power Four and above only one other non triple-option team.

Wisconsin reloaded in a big way on offense via the transfer portal, and has an extremely promising new offensive line coach in Eric Mateos, but there's still a lot of projection involved with this Badgers' offense.

But I want to make something abundantly clear: Colton Joseph is unlike anything we've seen in Madison at the quarterback position, maybe ever.

This Colton Joseph tape is a blast, man.

Full breakdown coming soon, but there’s a LOT of high-level ball against P4 competition…#Badgers pic.twitter.com/6CCTMWihOn
— Seamus (@seamus_rohrer) January 6, 2026

That's not to say he's going to singlehandedly turn the program around, become a Heisman finalist, or lead the Badgers to the College Football Playoff. But he is an extremely talented quarterback in his own right and should be viewed as such, not in the context of what Wisconsin has done in recent seasons.

But for whatever reason, national college football media is having a tough time discerning Joseph the individual from Wisconsin's recent quarterbacks/passing offenses.

Joseph has consistently flown under the radar all offseason, but ESPN's David Hale recently published a quarterbacks article with a particularly dismal review of Joseph's outlook for 2026.

The article tiers every quarterback situation in the FBS ahead of 2026, and Joseph falls into "Tier 15: Everyone gets lucky sometimes." That puts him behind at least 81 other quarterbacks in Hale's ranking.

Former Old Dominion Monarchs quarterback Colton Joseph. | Brian Bishop-Imagn Images

It's honestly tough to wrap one's head around that level of disrespect for a gunslinger who's tallied nearly 6,000 yards and 60 touchdowns across two seasons at the FBS level.

Just look at who else falls into Joseph's tier according to Hale. Boston College's Mason McKenzie, a D-II transfer? Arkansas' KJ Jackson, with six career games under his belt?

Hale isn't the only one who appears to be ignoring Joseph's potential; national writers have slotted in him in towards the bottom half of the Big Ten all offseason.

Again, I wouldn't go as far as to suggest Joseph is going to singlehandedly change the direction of Wisconsin football. But anyone who's been paying attention could tell you that there certainly aren't at least 81 better quarterbacks in the nation.

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