With the Wisconsin Badgers hiring a new head coach in Luke Fickell, one of the first dominoes to fall in Madison is the apparent looming transfer of quarterback Graham Mertz to another program. Mertz announced his decision to move on from Wisconsin football and enter the transfer portal, via Twitter.

Fickell had earlier said that he tried convincing Mertz to stay, but that obviously was not enough for Wisconsin football to keep the quarterback in Madison, per Evan Flood of 247 Sports.

“We want nothing more than the best for him. I encouraged him to stick around here and see how the changes go. That's not what I wanted him to do, but I respect that.”

Mertz started his college football career in 2019 with Wisconsin football but redshirted his first year. He had a bigger role the following season, passing for 1,238 yards and nine touchdowns with five interceptions across seven appearances. Overall, Mertz recorded 5,405 passing yards and 38 touchdowns against 26 interceptions on 59.5 percent completion rate across four years at Wisconsin.

With Mertz entering the transfer portal, the Badgers will go up against the Oklahoma State Cowboys at the Guaranteed Bowl Game later this December. Who Wisconsin football will start for that contest is currently unclear, but it's either going to be Myles Burkett or Chase Wolf. Wisconsin also still has walk-on Marshall Howe.

In what turned out to be Mertz's final game in Wisconsin football threads, he passed for 170 yards (0 touchdowns, 1 interception) on 16 of 27 completions in a 23-16 loss to the Minnesota Golden Gophers.