Senior quarterback Jack Coan sustained a foot injury at practice last week, head coach Paul Chryst confirmed Monday morning.

Next up on the depth chart is redshirt freshman Graham Mertz, who has been getting work with the No. 1 offense in Coan's absence.

At this point, Chryst doesn’t know the severity of the injury or how long Coan will be out. Wisconsin's head coach told reporters that the non-contact injury occurred while Coan was dropping back in the pocket.

Behind Mertz is redshirt sophomore Chase Wolf and redshirt junior Danny Vanden Boom as the No. 2 and No. 3 signal callers, respectively.

“Graham’s been our second quarterback when Jack was the starter and Graham is taking all the reps with the ones. And then we have Chase and then Danny getting the rest of the work,” Chryst told reporters during his first availability following Coan's injury. “This is a big week coming up for us, we’ve got our legs underneath us and going with everything, but we need to have a really good week this week with our group.”

For a senior who was returning for his second full season as a starter, Coan may not be able to play at all in 2020.

“He’s incredibly unselfish and he cares about this team and doesn’t want anything to affect the team in a negative way," Chryst said. "Obviously the last thing any guy wants is to not be able to participate.

“Heck, for a guy like Jack, he’d be disappointed if he missed one practice."

Mertz, the crown jewel of Wisconsin's 2019 recruiting class, appeared late in two games last fall, completing nine of his 10 passes for 73 yards. Chryst said the playbook doesn't need to be adjusted much for Mertz, Wolf or Vanden Boom.

“That’s a fair question. I think it was certainly going to be different anyway without Jonathan (Taylor), without Q (Quintez Cephus), without (Tyler) Biadasz. We didn’t lose maybe a large number of guys but certainly it was going to look different," Chryst said. "I think you always have to be conscious about one thing - Jack’s been in the system a long time and played a lot of games and been in a lot of situations.

“We have to put together a plan that fits this year’s group - that was going to be done, regardless. I don’t feel that any of the quarterbacks are necessarily limited or you can do a lot of one thing and not much of another because of who is at quarterback. System-wise, I think your playbook can be the same but then it’s what does each guy do well and how can you play to those strengths?"

Chryst wouldn’t rule out having Coan back for the opener until he receives an updated report from specialists involved in his injury.

“That’s why I want to get the information from the doctors and the specialists and then we’ll know more. Any time that this happens, you don’t know how much time, so you’re preparing for both,” Chryst said when asked if Coan will return during the season or even be ready for the opener.

“(Graham’s) got reps with the ones and I’ve loved the way that all our guys are approaching practice. We’ve got a lot of guys getting reps with the ones and Graham’s no different. He’s doing some good things and you want to build off that. He’s no different than Jon Dietzen, who’s coming back but has played a lot of football."

Now just 19 days away from hosting Illinois, Mertz and the Wisconsin offense will have little time to waste as it works to get a new center, likely Kayden Lyles, up to speed with the redshirt freshman quarterback.

“We’ve got good players, maybe they don’t have the experience but doesn’t mean that they won’t be capable of being good,” Chryst said. “That’s one of the neat things of college football, there’s a natural changing of the guard. We’re happy for Tyler (Biadasz) moving on and doing well, we knew we were going to have a new center."