Well, it’s official. Redshirt freshman Joel Stave will be taking the reigns of the struggling Wisconsin (2-1 overall) offense Saturday morning against Texas El-Paso (1-2 overall) in the team’s final non-conference game of the season.
The former walk-on from Greenfield, Wis. replaced previous starter and redshirt junior Danny O’Brien after the first half of last Saturday’s 16-14 win against Utah State, in which O’Brien fumbled once and threw an interception which ended up being overturned.
“[Stave] didn’t show me any reason why not to stick with him,” Wisconsin head coach Bret Bielema said.
Bielema did, however, mention multiple times how Stave, O’Brien and fifth-year senior Curt Phillips are all capable of tallying W’s and how he has confidence in each. Apparently the rest of the players do as well.
“I think all week [the team has] been kind of worrying about doing their own business, not worried about who’s the quarterback,” Bielema said. “Like I said, we’ve got a couple guys that we can win with.”
Badger fans had hoped to see the O’Brien that was on display his redshirt freshman year at Maryland, in which he won ACC Freshman of the Year while throwing 22 touchdowns and just eight interceptions.
What Badger fans didn’t want to see was the O’Brien that threw for just seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions a year ago. Granted, he was under a spread offense this past year, which most likely had an effect on his numbers.But O’Brien has struggled even under Wisconsin’s quintessential pro-style offense this season. It doesn’t appear this way when looking at his stats, but something clearly wasn’t working right.
Bielema thinks he simply didn’t take care of the pigskin as well as a typical Wisconsin quarterback should.
“When we went with him after halftime, the number one thing was ball security,” Bielema said. “I told him that, I told all of them that when the first thing was made and I think it’s resonated with our entire team. There’s been a huge emphasis on it.”
Bielema said Stave was informed of his starting duties on Monday and was comforted when he learned he would not have to meet with the media this week.
“Actually, when I told Joel I wasn’t going to make him see the Monday media he was kind of relieved, so he could just worry about prepping and moving himself forward,” Bielema said.
Realistically, critics can’t judge Stave on last weekend’s performance, when he was essentially put in to hand the ball off in hopes of wearing down the defense. In other words, he was put in to run typical Wisconsin second-half play.
The only thing different last week is that the Camp Randall fans were stressed the entire second half for the first time in quite a while.
Stave threw just six passes, two of which were completed for 15 yards.
Bielema did seem to say that he was not afraid of using multiple quarterbacks and says that certain situations might call for another signal-caller.
“I make every move with the belief that it will be long term, but on the same account, you understand that we have a number of guys,” Bielema said. “Danny O’Brien has come in and done a great job during two-minute O. I’ve seen him do that, so in my mind, those kind of situations arise, right now there’s nobody better in that situation than Danny O’Brien.”
“I think Curt, with what he brings to the table in certain situations, gets you excited about him as a player. And obviously Joel just has a wide range of being able to do all of it.”
So what gives Stave the ability to “do all of it?”
“He’s mature beyond his years, but he’s got a lot of kid in him,” Bielema said. “Just the way he kind of handles everything. He really has a lot of fun.”
“[He’s] kind of one of those guys, and as a coach, you love (a quarterback) that doesn’t get rattled.”
