Wisconsin dealing with QB injury issues again after Billy Edwards Jr. leaves season opener

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin is dealing with an injury to its starting quarterback for a third straight season.

The Badgers are crossing their fingers that the non-contact injury that sent Billy Edwards Jr. out of their season-opening 17-0 victory over Miami (Ohio) on Thursday isn’t as serious as the issues that sidelined Tanner Mordecai for multiple games in 2023 and ended Tyler Van Dyke’s season prematurely last year.

Edwards started limping after making a handoff in the second quarter, and he eventually went to the locker room with what school officials described as a lower-body injury. The Maryland transfer watched the second half of his Wisconsin debut while wearing sweats on the sideline.

“I don’t know a whole lot,” Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell said. “Good to see, though, that he was back out there, able to be a part of the game and be with our team and things like that. Hopefully that’s a really good sign for things moving forward.”

Injury concerns at quarterback have hampered Wisconsin throughout Fickell’s tenure.

Mordecai missed 3 1/2 games in 2023 with a broken hand as Wisconsin went 7-6.

Wisconsin was 2-0 last year when Van Dyke tore his anterior cruciate ligament in the third game of the season, knocking him out for the rest of the year. The Badgers finished 5-7, ending a string of 22 straight winning seasons and bowl appearances.

The Badgers couldn’t help but wonder what more could go wrong when they saw thier quarterback go down once again Thursday.

“It just seems like a QB curse,” wide receiver Vinny Anthony said. “I don’t know. It’s weird.”

Anthony did express some optimism about Edwards’ situation after the game.

“Billy will be fine,” Anthony said. “I talked to him. He’ll be good.”

Wisconsin prepared for this possible scenario during the offseason when it went into the transfer portal and added two quarterbacks who had started for Bowl Subdivision teams last season.

Edwards entered this season as Wisconsin’s clear-cut starter after completing 65% of his passes for 2,881 yards with 15 touchdowns with nine interceptions at Maryland last year. But O’Neil also has plenty of experience.

O’Neil completed 63.3% of his passes for 2,181 yards with 12 touchdowns and six interceptions while starting 11 games for San Diego State as a freshman last season.

“It was a priority to make sure we had a room full of guys we felt would be competitive,” Fickell said. “We’re not denying obviously when Billy came in here, we basically said, ‘You’re our guy.’ But we really wanted to have somebody that was going to come in and think they could take that from him. If you ask me what Danny’s strengths are, I think it’s that. There’s a confidence level that he has. Obviously he played last year. He’s played a lot of ball.”

O’Neil’s experience was evident Thursday in the way he responded after Edwards’ injury.

“It’s a little bit of a rollercoaster,” O’Neil said. “Billy’s the leader of the team, so seeing him go down, it’s not just me who was worried about it. But knowing that there’s 10 other guys in the huddle that are looking to me to set a tone and lead them now, I couldn’t really sit back and worry what was happening. I had to just go in there and lead the guys. I think I did that the way I always try to. I try to have some fire, bring some juice to the huddle.”

O’Neil bounced back from a potentially costly turnover.

Leading 3-0 in the third quarter, Wisconsin attempted to go for it rather than kicking a short field goal on fourth-and-3 from the 10. The strategy went awry as O’Neil threw a pass that Silas Walters intercepted in the end zone.

O’Neil responded by throwing a 3-yard touchdown pass to Anthony on Wisconsin’s next series. He added a 1-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter. He ended up going 12 of 19 for 120 yards while also rushing for 13 yards on 11 carries.

Along the way, he showed a feistiness that he likes bringing to every game.

“I try to have some fire, bring some juice to the huddle,” O’Neil said. “I just think the guys responded well. I think that I’m able to bring juice into the huddle and allow guys to play a little bit more free. I love the way the guys responded to me being in the huddle and allowing me to lead them.”

The Badgers now wait to learn if Edwards is able to return for next week’s game with Middle Tennessee or if O’Neil will need to lead them again.

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