BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — The social media exchange was brief and to the point. It was initiated by Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes after Graham Mertz threw a record-breaking five touchdown passes in the 2019 All-American Bowl to earn Most Valuable Player honors.
Mertz outshined Spencer Rattler (Oklahoma) and Sam Howell (North Carolina), among others.
Bringing attention to the five scoring strikes, Mahomes posted afterwards, "Not bad at all!"
Mertz replied "Preciate it brotha!" to Mahomes and his legion of 1.4 million Twitter followers.
Since both are from the 9-1-3 (area code), the lines of communication have stayed open.
"Every once in a while, we'll DM (direct message) back and forth," said Mertz, who's from Overland Park, a Kansas City suburb. Mahomes lives five miles away in Mission Hills. "We're buddies. We can definitely joke around when we're home. It's fun. We've thrown a couple of times.
"For him and me, it was just really communicating how you throw a ball. That sounds really simple. But, basically versus this coverage, how are you going to fit it in? Trajectory and stuff like that. He gave me a ton of pointers on that and he really told me to have fun with it."
Mertz assured Mahomes, "Yeah, that's what I've been trying to do."
Especially now that Mertz has stepped out of the depth chart and back into the spotlight for the first time since his well-documented recruitment. In taking over for the injured Jack Coan as Wisconsin's starting quarterback, Mertz said, "Right now, I'm very confident in my ability to win games here."
It's not the first time that he has expressed that sentiment in explaining why he is here, why he chose Wisconsin over Ohio State, Alabama, Clemson and so many other programs; why he opted for Paul Chryst over Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Dabo Swinney and so many other head coaches?
They all pursued Mertz. Many after he had verbally committed to the Badgers in October of 2017. Two weeks ago, on FOX's Saturday pregame show, Meyer confirmed, "We tried our best to get him."
Asked about recruiting, Mertz recounted, "Everyone says, 'Find a place that's like home.' And I feel this is a place where it was home for me and I felt like I could win a bunch of games here."
There, he said it again.
"In the end, you can't fall into the hype of, 'I'm going here because I'm a four-star and all the four stars go here,"' said Mertz, a four-star. "No. That's not how it goes. You have to find the perfect spot for you and how you play.
"I feel like I found the perfect spot for me …"
Get ready for it.
"… and I can't wait to win games here."
Wisconsin Badgers quarterback Graham Mertz (5) scrambles for yardage during an NCAA college football game against the Kent State Golden Flashes on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2019, in Madison, Wis. The Badgers won 48-0.
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Graham Mertz has had command of the offensive huddle since the first one that he stepped into as a starting quarterback. That was in the second grade, he recalled, during a full-padded tackle football game on a regulation 100-yard field. Up until then, he had scrimmaged on half-fields.
Jogging his memory, "I'm hoping I threw like 10 touchdown passes."
But he conceded, "I really can't remember."
And yet the ultra-competitive Mertz insisted, "I definitely think we won."
Back then, his youth coach was his dad, a former offensive lineman at the University of Minnesota in the late '80s and early '90s. Ron Mertz, a Burnsville, Minnesota, native, played for John Gutekunst, whose son, Brian, is the general manager of the Green Bay Packers.
Ron met Amy, a Cheesehead from the Green Bay area, on the Minnesota campus. They married and had three children; Graham, the youngest; Mya, a senior on the Drake basketball team; and Lauren, who played basketball at Kansas State before her career was shortened by knee injuries.
"They're probably the two most competitive people I've ever met," Graham said of his older sisters. "We'd go shoot hoops and end up playing a game of 21. And it would get so competitive that we'd get mad at each other and not talk for three hours.
"They definitely taught me how to be competitive on the basketball court and that carried over to football … (Mertz paused) … funny story — In quarantine, me and my mom and my dad and Mya were playing some stupid tennis game, Four Square, hitting the ball back and forth, and it got a little heated.
"Our entire family is super competitive."
The Mertz family used to regularly take trips to Wisconsin and vacation in Door County.
"We'd get up there once or twice a year when I was younger," Mertz said. "My grandparents are in Green Bay, so I've always been a Packers fan. I had the Brett Favre Packers jersey; the Brett Favre Vikings jersey and eventually I had the Aaron Rodgers jersey.
"I'm a big Aaron Rodgers guy. I love watching him and the way he plays."
There was never a doubt in Mertz's mind that he would play quarterback.
"I always kind of knew how to throw a football," he said. "I knew I could throw a ball well. It was just knowing I could translate that on to a competitive field. My dad played pretty much every position besides quarterback, so he reached out to Drew Lock's dad and he put us in contact with Coach Hoover."
Drew Lock, the Denver Broncos starting quarterback, is from the Kansas City suburb of Lee's Summit. Lock played four years at Missouri and was a second-round pick of the Broncos in 2019. Justin Hoover is the head coach of another metro KC high school, Shawnee Mission East.
Hoover, the founder of the Spin It Quarterback Academy, has tutored Lock and Mertz.
"I was in middle school, the sixth or seventh grade, and I've been working out with him (Hoover) ever since," Mertz said. "Still to this day, I can shoot him a text and be like, 'Can you take a look at my mechanics on this? Where can I clean up?' For him, it's all about cleaning up mechanics."
It's all about the ball, too. Protecting the football. It has always been that way for Mertz. Good things because Illinois, under head coach Lovie Smith, has been among the national leaders in forcing turnovers. Last season, the Illini forced 28 (12 interceptions and 16 fumbles).
The Badgers were guilty of three turnovers in their 2019 loss at Illinois.
"Coach Bud does a great job with ball-security drills," Mertz said of UW quarterbacks coach Jon Budmayr. "You put the ball on the ground, you lose games. You put the ball in the end zone, you win games. The past couple of weeks, the emphasis has been on knowing the ball is everything."
Wisconsin quarterbacks coach Jon Budmayr
In this vein, Budmayr and Chryst have delivered a singular message to the QBs.
"The way Coach teaches progressions and the reads, Coach has instilled in all of us, 'If you don't like it, there's always something better; and if nothing is there, you don't want to take a negative,'" said redshirt sophomore Chase Wolf, who has been competing with Mertz for playing time.
"Jack (Coan) did a good job of taking some shots when he needed to and also checking the ball down when there's nothing there. We've emphasized check-downs since I first got here my freshman year … we also practice a lot of ball security in the pocket, so we don't get strip sacked.
"The less we turn the ball over, the more possessions we have."
Last season, Coan threw for 2,727 yards and 18 touchdowns. He was intercepted just five times.
"Jack is a great decision-maker and that's one thing that he continues to help me with," Mertz said. "He continues to ask questions at meetings. And when one person asks a question, we all get something from it. His decision-making and questions are things that will help me in the long run."
Coan, who is out indefinitely after foot surgery, has been zipping around the practice field on a medical scooter.
"He can fly on that scooter," said Mertz, chuckling.
More importantly, he has been there for Mertz, Wolf, Danny Vanden Boom and Daniel Wright.
"He's a significant, big part of this team and a leader on this team," Chryst emphasized of Coan, a fourth-year senior. "That's what is hard for people (to understand). When a guy gets hurt, they think that he's gone. But he's with us every day and he's being himself, he's involved.
"He's not acting as a coach; he's acting as a leader of this team. That's who he is, and that's who guys look to … it's the same person, the same qualities exist, the same care that he has for this team, the same passion for this team that didn't get injured. Something else happened where he can't play."
Even while serving as Coan's backup, Mertz said, "I've tried to prep like I'm the starter."
Graham Mertz (5)
A big part of that preparation has been the interaction with his teammates.
"We stress in the quarterback room that you can learn from everybody's reps," Mertz said. "Even going through film, you can ask a guy, 'Hey, Chase, what did you see here? Why did you throw this?' He tells you and it's like 'Oh, that makes sense' and this is how we can clean it up.
"I learn from Chase and he learns from me. That's how it has to be."
At an earlier age, Mertz had to learn how to be a leader.
"My freshman year (of high school) I really didn't know how to lead guys," he said. "I thought everybody could be led the same way. But it's different for everybody. Some guys like to get chewed out and they need that. Some guys you need to put your arm around them and take them along with you.
"I really learned that my sophomore and junior year."
It was a critical juncture in Mertz's development as a prep quarterback. After spending his freshman year on the junior varsity and his sophomore year as a backup at Bishop Miege High School — where Hoover was an assistant — Mertz felt like he was treading water. A change was in order.
So, he transferred to Blue Valley North High School, five minutes from his home.
"Going into a new school, you definitely have to adapt and adapt quickly, and I felt like I did a good job of that," said Mertz, who not only won the starting job as a junior but won over a team that revolved around 35 seniors. In fact, he made such a good first impression that he was named captain.
And he didn't disappoint, leading Blue Valley North to the Class 6A state championship, the first in school history. As a senior, he guided the Mustangs to a runner-up finish while throwing for 51 touchdowns, a state record. In his two years combined, he had 96 passing TDs and 16 interceptions.
Looking back on his decision to transfer, he said, "Getting there my junior year with a bunch of guys who already had two quarterbacks that were looking to start, I was trying to lead and learning how to lead. Sometimes you have to take risks in life and see how they work out. It worked out pretty good."
Mertz volunteered something last week that brought everything full circle. "The biggest thing for me right now," he said, "is just execution and playing with that confidence that I had in high school. And I think I'm finally hitting that stride right now with the offense."
Offensive lineman Jon Dietzen can vouch for that. With 32 career starts, Dietzen is the most experienced player on the UW roster. In his short time around Mertz, he has been impressed with how "he has definitely shown that he has been taking mental reps and he was preparing to play."
As far as Mertz's all-important demeanor in the huddle — he appeared in just two games as a true freshman in 2019 — Dietzen said, "He feels comfortable. I've been around a lot of guys whose first few times coming into the huddle things don't feel right. Things clicked with him right away."
Mertz came up with his own word for settling in as the starter. Comfortability. As in, "I would say recently it has been my overall comfortability with the offense and really just owning that leadership role in the huddle knowing where I'm going with the ball with different coverages.
"That has been the consistent growth for me. Now it's at a place where I'm very confident with where I'm going with the ball and how I'm throwing guys open."
That has been evident to Wisconsin offensive coordinator Joe Rudolph.
"He has taken a big step," Rudolph said Monday. "He's always worked really hard and been attentive to detail. But as he has gotten more of the reps, you could see his confidence … just his want-to … to get it just right is there which is exciting for us.
"Obviously, he's got a lot of confidence in his arm. As he works the pocket, he's not afraid to take opportunities to make plays down the field. But he has shown a lot of things, man. One of the very first plays he has had, he rolled out on a sprint-out and took off with the ball for about eight yards.
"He's got a mix of things that he trusts in."
Not the least of which is in his ability to win games here.
