Wisconsin Fans Shouldn't Overreact to Graham Mertz's Placement on Depth Chart

With less than three weeks until the start of the 2019 college football season, most teams are getting their rosters in order for when the first game rolls around. Coming off an 8-5 year and a third place Big Ten West finish, the Wisconsin Badgers are looking to explode out of the gates.

Through the majority of spring ball, the hype has been around 4-star quarterback Graham Mertz. Before coming to Madison, he was ranked the third best pro-style quarterback in the class of 2019. Despite being heavily recruited, it looks like Mertz might not be the Badgers guaranteed starter this season.

Keep in mind, Mertz is a true freshmen, so him not being named the starter right away isn't too surprising. It's hard to find a true freshmen who can shine right away similar to Clemson's Trevor Lawrence, and even he wasn't handed the keys to the offense from Week 1.

At this point, Mertz's real battle is for the backup position. If he can lock that down over Chase Wolf, he could potentially see some time this year in the event Jack Coan doesn't produce or goes down with an injury.

There's no reason for Badgers fans to panic about Mertz being so low on the depth chart. He has more than enough time to progress into a legitimate starting quarterback, and the fact he's drawn so much attention to the program is enough to get excited about.

Even though he's the third stringer as of now for the Badgers, don't completely count out Graham Mertz from seeing the field at some point this year.