Polzin: Can Tyler Van Dyke end Wisconsin football’s run of subpar quarterback play? (2024)

The scoreboard is the thing that matters most to Tyler Van Dyke, and that’s a commendable trait to have in a quarterback. A gaudy win total in his first and only season in Madison will endear the Miami (Fla.) transfer to a University of Wisconsin football fan base that has grown tired of mediocrity.

But there’s one thing Van Dyke may or may not know as he gets set to make his debut with the Badgers on Friday night when Western Michigan visits Camp Randall Stadium: The bar for solid quarterback play in this program isn’t set real high.

In fact, Wisconsin fans might have forgotten what it even looks like. It’s been five years since a quarterback played at a high level, at least consistently.

The 2019 version of Jack Coan was no Russell Wilson, but he completed nearly 70% of his passes for 2,727 yards with 18 touchdowns and only five interceptions in 339 attempts while helping Wisconsin win 10 games and reach the Rose Bowl. The Badgers ranked 23rd nationally in pass efficiency rating that season and haven’t ranked higher than 65th since that point.

Phil Longo’s flashy Air Raid rolled into town last season and never really got off the ground. Wisconsin finished with a team pass efficiency rating of 118.9, its lowest mark since 2014, and ended up 108th out of 130 teams nationally in that category.

Would having a healthy Tanner Mordecai for all 13 games have made a difference? Yes, at least to some degree, but Mordecai and Co. weren’t exactly lighting it up through the air before he broke his throwing hand halfway through the season.

Enter Van Dyke, who ranked 13th nationally in passer rating as a redshirt freshman in 2021 before the combination of injuries and losing favor with the coaching staff derailed his career with the Hurricanes.

Van Dyke says he pays attention to stats but doesn’t dwell on them. Again, the only one that matters to him is the win-loss column.

“My job is to distribute to the playmakers,” he said, “and do what I’ve got to do to put those guys in the best position to win.”

Van Dyke, like Mordecai a year ago, arrives at Wisconsin with plenty of starting experience. There’s not much he hasn’t seen.

“Being the quarterback, you have to be the leader that the team needs when adversity hits,” Van Dyke said. “That’s the biggest thing. Some guys might crumble and what not, but you’ve got to pick guys up — especially younger guys — in those adverse moments. That’s probably the biggest thing that I need to do in times like that.”

The pass efficiency rating is a number that gets attached to the quarterback, but it’s not a one-man operation. Wilson (191.72) had plenty of help around him while leading the nation in that category in 2011, as did Scott Tolzien (165.92) the previous season while finishing sixth nationally in pass efficiency.

Ditto for Coan (151.76) in 2019 and Alex Hornibrook (148.62) two years earlier. All four of those quarterbacks had good protection in front of them, skill players around them and complementary ground games that made their lives easier.

So yes, this isn’t all on VanDyke. He needs some help.

But the outlook of this 2024Wisconsin team changes if Van Dyke can regain his 2021 form — he finished 11th nationally in pass efficiency rating (160.1) — and elevate the players around him.

Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell has said multiple times that he looks for leaders and winners when evaluating the quarterback position. Asked if there are other metrics he considers to judge whether a quarterback offered a winning performance, Fickell went with another quality that can’t be measured in numbers.

“The consistency, to me, is what has to be in your quarterback position,” Fickell said. “Whatever that means, whatever that looks like.”

It looks like Coan in 2019 or to a lesser degree Hornibrook in 2017. If we’re really lucky, it looks like Wilson in 2011 or Tolzien a year earlier.

We know it when we see it. We also know it’s long overdue.