Despite head coach Bret Bielema stating back in late March that Danny O’Brien was promised nothing but the chance to compete for the starting quarterback job, the transfer from Maryland was widely expected to nail down the job as Russell Wilson‘s replacement sooner rather than later.
Sunday evening, Bielema made the inevitable official.
In a pair of tweets posted to his Twitter account, Bielema announced that O’Brien had indeed won the QB competition and will start the opener vs. Northern Iowa. O’Brien beat out senior Curt Phillips and redshirt freshman Joel Stave for the job.
“Also had so many questions about our QB situation that want everyone to know we are going to start Danny O’Brien in our opener against UNI,” Bielema’s Twitter account stated in one tweet, which was quickly proceeded by “Both Curt and Joel had great camps as well, we are very fortunate that we have 3 QB’s that can play winning football for us. On Wisconsin!”
With the expected now officially official, and as we posed in our preseason Top 25, the question now becomes...
Stay tuned for that answer, as O’Brien’s performance could go a long way in determining whether or not the Badgers can make it back-to-back Big Ten title game wins -- and if they’ll be a player on the national stage.