MADISON, Wis. - The Wisconsin Badgers held their second open practice of their spring camp on Saturday morning inside Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday, and a few offensive players were available to speak with the media at the end of the session. Notes from their interviews are included below.
-- Junior center Tyler Biadasz is one of a few older players who will sit out for the entirety of spring camp to rehab after undergoing surgery in the offseason to correct a nagging injury from the 2018 season. Biadasz told reporters after practice on Saturday that he had a procedure to clean up his hip at the conclusion of the season after playing through the injury during the end of the year, but he’s expecting to be ready to participate in summer conditioning and fall camp before the season starts.
But until then Biadasz, along with left tackle Cole Van Lanen, has taken a leadership role in teaching the younger players along the offensive line while they get reps in his place. Biadasz said he’s enjoying getting a chance to be an extra coach on the field, where he can help younger players like Kayden Lyles, Logan Bruss, and Josh Seltzner along the interior of the offensive line - much like departing senior Michael Deiter did for him two years ago while he sat out of spring camp and handed the center spot to Biadasz in the process.
“It’s definitely a different role. The first couple of practices you’re kind of feeling it out and seeing what you can bring to practice when you’re not practicing,” Biadasz said on Saturday. “It’s a different role but I like it. I enjoy (helping) our team get better.”
“I think the younger guys appreciate it too because you can talk to a guy with a lot more experience and everything. I thought that was benefit for me two springs ago when (Michael) Deiter was out and I was just talking to him a lot. I’m bringing everything I can bring. We’re doing a good job of keeping an eye on them and making sure once they make a mistake to remind them so the next time they can seize the moment.”
-- Biadasz also thought about leaving for the NFL at the end of the 2018 season, but ultimately he decided to return to school for his junior year. Biadasz has graded out well along the interior of the offensive line in both of his two seasons so far for UW, but the junior said that the NFL recommended he return to school for another season - although Biadasz added that his decision wasn’t entirely dependant on what grade he got back from the league.
“It just wasn’t the right time,” Biadasz said. “ It wasn’t the right time for me to go. I wanted to come back and bring home a Big Ten championship and a national championship, and I just wasn’t done here.”
-- As the Badgers look to recharge their offense after last year’s disappointing finish, it sounds like the team is going to put more of an emphasis on being more balanced between the run and the pass - in the sense that they need their passing game to take a step up and become a true complement to star running back Jonathan Taylor and the rest of their ground game. Wide receivers Kendric Pryor and A.J. Taylor both said that getting more out of the passing game is a focus for this season - both by improving the connection between the quarterback and his receivers and helping the receivers get open more consistently down the field.
-- Speaking of the quarterbacks, Pryor said that he thinks junior quarterback Jack Coan has matured after he got his first taste of significant playing time last year while then-starter Alex Hornibrook was out with various injuries. Coan has been getting all of his work with the first team offense so far this spring in the open practices, and Pryor said he can tell Coan has taken a step forward from where he was at this time last year.
“I do see - you can tell he’s matured,” Pryor said on Saturday. “He’s got another year of experience under his belt. Once you get a year of experience, you’re going to grow. You’re not going to make the same mistakes that you did last year. He’s matured a lot since the last season.”
-- As for true freshman quarterback Graham Mertz, wide receiver A.J. Taylor said he can tell the highly touted quarterback prospect is a good player. But Taylor also said that Mertz has a lot on his plate at the moment after leaving high school a semester early to join the team for their spring practices.
“You can tell that he’s a good player, but you can also tell that he’s young,” Taylor said on Saturday. “When you come in as an early enrollee you’ve got school, you’ve got meetings, all of that stuff. Shoot - football, that’s the big thing too. He’s still adjusting. That’s probably the better word for it. I think once he gets it all squared away he’ll be a good player.”
-- When you lose a trophy game for the first time since the early 2000s, it shouldn’t surprise anyone when that loss sticks in the back of a team’s mind for a while. So don’t be surprised to hear the Badgers talk a lot about winning Paul Bunyan’s Axe back in 2019 after Minnesota grabbed the trophy with a stunning 37-15 rout of UW in Camp Randall at the end of last year. Because while the Axe is in Minnesota’s trophy case for now, Wisconsin’s trophy case isn’t empty - the Badgers put a picture of the Golden Gophers “chopping down” one of their goal posts in the place where the Axe resided for a decade and a half.
“It’s one of those games where like I said a little earlier we came out and laid an egg,” running back Garrett Groshek said after practice on Saturday. “It’s just how the game is. It wasn’t our day - the snowball effect. Things kind of added up and we didn’t give ourselves a chance to win that at the end of the day.”
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John Veldhuis covers Wisconsin football, basketball and recruiting for BadgerBlitz.com on the Rivals.com network. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnVeldhuis.
