MADISON — When quarterback Nick Evers transferred to Wisconsin on Dec. 17, it opened the floodgates of excitement for Badgers fans. Wisconsin had landed an elite quarterback — one who could pummel a defense with his rocket arm on one snap, and outrace them with his blazing speed on the next.

Evers had the recruiting pedigree and he came from a prestigious program in Oklahoma. His tantalizing physical traits, however, are what had UW fans salivating over his potential. Despite his exceptional athleticism, Evers is battling for the third quarterback spot halfway through spring practices.

“I’ve learned the hard way, just as a coach, putting the best athlete out there or just the strongest arm out there slows the production of the offense, particularly when you’re installing it for the first time,” new offensive coordinator Phil Longo said.

“Those guys never really max out the potential that they have if they don’t understand how to play the game of football.”

When Evers arrived in Madison, the quarterback room was bare. Incumbent starter Graham Mertz had already transferred out and would commit to Florida just days later. True freshman Myles Burkett and fifth-year senior Chase Wolf were the only scholarship quarterbacks on the roster.

That changed quickly. Longo wasted no time rebuilding the quarterback room in his vision, landing another top transfer in SMU gunslinger Tanner Mordecai. Eleven days later, he added another arm in Mississippi State product Braedyn Locke. Suddenly, the position was stacked.

“Coach Longo was pretty up front about it, he said he was probably gonna bring in someone that’s older than me,” Evers told BadgerBlitz.com. “That really wasn’t an issue for me…My biggest thing wasn’t playing time. My biggest thing was seeking someone that can develop me and help me be the best quarterback, leader and best man possible. Coach Longo checks all those boxes.”

In small glimpses this spring, Evers has flashed brilliance. He loves to use his feet to escape the pocket, and is dynamic when doing so. He’s eager to take off and run, and he’s shown that he can get to the second level of a defense in a hurry. On top of that, the ball flies out of his hand almost effortlessly. With a flick of his wrist, it’s 40 or 50 yards downfield, over the top of the defense.

“Nick is exciting athletically,” Longo agreed. “He might be the best athlete in the room.”

So what’s restricting this specimen of a quarterback to limited QB3 reps?

“On my board, it says ‘knowledge equals reps,’’’ Longo said plainly. “What he’s working on right now, and we just met one-on-one yesterday, is getting to a point where he understands what’s going on out there in the pass game from a protection standpoint. In the run game, when do we change some things or make a check or throw an RPO…those types of things he’s still on the learning curve with, and that’s why he’s had fewer reps.”

“So the better he understands the system, the more we’ll see him out there.”

The current quarterback atop the depth chart, Mordecai, has four seasons of collegiate experience in which he’s gotten to learn the minutiae of how offenses operate. For two of those seasons, he was a starter at pass-happy SMU. Locke, the current top backup, comes from a very similar offense to the one Longo has installed in Madison — the late Mike Leach’s famed air raid.

Evers, meanwhile, had very limited experience at Oklahoma. He appeared in one game and threw one pass. The offense in Norman, orchestrated by coordinator Jeff Lebby, plays with similar tempo to Longo’s air raid but still has plenty of differences.

“Adjusting to the scheme and adjusting to the playstyle is probably the biggest hurdle right now,” Evers said. “The previous staff at Oklahoma had a certain way of doing things. Coach Longo is a little more hands-on with all his quarterbacks here, which is something I really needed to develop and be the person and quarterback that I want to be going forward.”

Evers oozes athletic ability and arm talent. But playing quarterback is a mental game as much as it is a physical one.

“We won’t recruit them if they don’t have the arm strength. We won’t recruit them if they haven’t demonstrated the accuracy. But once they get here, they’re not getting on the field, they’re not repping if they don’t know the job,” Longo said. “Part of that is their obsessiveness to learn.”

Evers had the physical tools to eventually earn a starting gig in big-time college football. But he understands that Longo can mold him from an incredible athlete into an incredible quarterback.

“He’s a quarterback guru. He develops quarterback rooms, and he’s really hands on with his quarterbacks,” Evers raved. “He wants to make sure every quarterback knows what they’re doing. And if they don’t understand, he’s gonna repeat, keep on teaching you until you do remember it. The amount of knowledge he has of the game is mind-blowing.”

With the transfer portal as commonplace as it is now in college football, it’s already normalized within the sport. In the FBS, 2,918 players sought new schools via the portal in 2022, according to NCAA data. With this many players utilizing the portal to further their athletic careers, it may seem like a routine process from the outside looking in. But it’s not always easy for a college kid to pack up their life and move to a brand new campus across the country. Couple that with having to learn a new, sophisticated playbook, and players like Evers have their work cut out for them. The redshirt freshman was very candid about his struggles.

“The transition, different kinds of offenses, terminologies and stuff like that, that was a little bit slower for me to begin with,” Evers admitted. “And you know, I was battling some issues, just transitioning from school to school. Moving far away from home and everything.”

“But I’m not gonna use that as an excuse,” he added. “I need to be better; I should’ve prepared a little bit harder for spring. And you know, I’m working through those mistakes.”

Despite getting off to a slow start in Madison, Evers has stayed level-headed. He logs “countless” hours in the film room with his coordinator. He repeatedly stressed how the quarterbacks constantly push each other to get better.

“I feel like I’ve made drastic improvement,” he said. “I’m getting it down, just taking it day by day, just trying to stack days.”

Evers knows his athleticism lets him do things not many quarterbacks can. He also knows where he needs to improve: in the quarterback classroom, learning the finer points of the offense.

“I put a lot of time and effort into my craft,” he said. “Just trying to get down that one last piece.”

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