What’s REALLY next for Wisconsin at quarterback without Alex Hornibrook?

Yesterday, shocking news came out of Madison, Wisconsin that presumed starting quarterback, Alex Hornibrook, would be entering ::Law & Order noise:: THE TRANSFER PORTAL!

He leaves Wisconsin as the quarterback with the highest winning percentage, most #taeks per game (left-handed QBs only) and becomes the second quarterback from the Inter-Ac Conference, in suburban Philadelphia, to transfer from Wisconsin (shouts to Bryan Savage, GO FORDS!).

That is a nice Instagram post and good on him for graduating from the business school, something that would take me roughly three decades to do (I imagine), but let’s talk about what really matters. Where do the Wisconsin Badgers go from here?

Sure, we can throw out options like Jack Coan, who has started a handful of games and looked competent, or Danny Vanden Boom or Chase Wolf, which both sounds like made up names of secondary villains in a Steven Seagal movie or, hell, if we really wanted to get crazy we could throw out the name ... Graham Mertz. The highly touted freshman is every Wisconsin fan’s fever dream quarterback. He’s got arm strength, mobility, moxie (which is middle-aged guy version of swag I’m pretty sure) and he’s already on campus.

But I don’t know if any of those guys are ready to take the reigns of the Badgers offense. What we need is someone who has more in-game experience. What we need is someone who can make all the plays. What we need is ... someone who runs the offense like a point guard.

LOOK AT THAT POCKET PRESENCE! LOOK AT THAT ROCKET ARM! LOOK WHERE HE HIT HIS RECEIVER! RIGHT ON THE GODDAMN MONEY!

We aren’t going to have Nate Reuvers play wide receiver, that’s for sure, but Wisconsin sophomore guard Brad Davison? He could be the man to lead Wisconsin to glory under center. Now let’s get down to the details of how this would work.

First of all, Davison had an award-winning high school football career as a quarterback. Most people don’t know that, but it’s true! He attended Maple Grove High School in Maple Grove, Minn., which has also produced such great athletes as my wife, who once rolled her ankle playing touch football on Thanksgiving and couldn’t walk the rest of the weekend, and my sister-in-law, who is afraid to catch any sort of ball unless she is in the pool and can close her eyes. A real great athletic legacy the Crimson have.

He was named Metro Area Player of the Year in 2016 by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, an award also won by former Badger linebacker Blake Sorensen and former Twins money pit Joe Mauer. He was a really good football player, there’s a video and everything!

He was basically the head coach of his high school team, so I don’t see why he couldn’t also be quarterbacks coach at Wisconsin. From the previously linked article:

Then there were the subtle ways Davison asserted control. Coach Matt Lombardi said he made Davison a “second coach” on the field, trusting him to count the number of defenders in the box and check out of plays as needed.

I cannot even imagine there is a better option for quarterback on campus than Daviso ... ::gets tapped on shoulder by every announcer who has ever called a Wisconsin basketball game this year::

“DREW, DID YOU KNOW THAT D’MITRIK TRICE ALSO PLAYED QUARTERBACK IN HIGH SCHOOL AND THAT COLT MCCOY AND JORDAN SHIPLEY WERE ROOMMATES AT TEXAS WHILE ALSO BEING ON THE SAME FOOTBALL TEAM!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!”

Holy cow, I did not know ANY of that!

Ummmmm, you guys? I think that the quarterback room on the basketball team might be just as good as the quarterback room on the football team. Trice was the quarterback at Wayne High School in Huber Heights, Ohio after Braxton Miller. You remember Miller, right? The quarterback at Ohio State who often beat Wisconsin in football? Yeah, and Trice took the same team to the state finals TWICE.

I think my point here is that we shouldn’t worry about the quarterback situation. There are plenty of options. And if neither of these two guys work out, I know that women’s hockey star Annie Pankowski is from California and if recruiting in NCAA 14 taught me anything it’s that great quarterbacks come from there.