Wisconsin Football: 2019 quarterback Graham Mertz shuts down recruiting, sticks with Badgers

Incoming 2019 quarterback Graham Mertz has announced he will not be entertaining offers from elsewhere, as he is fully committed to Wisconsin football.

The Wisconsin Badgers football program has recently entered uncharted waters. Fresh off a solid 2018 recruiting class, the Badgers are looking at perhaps their strongest class ever in 2019- thanks in large part to an unlikely position boost.

Incoming quarterback Graham Mertz was sought out by head coach Paul Chryst and the Badgers quite a while ago. In fact, Mertz was offered and verbally committed to Wisconsin before he was ranked by any national recruiting outlet.

Today, the 6-foot-3 quarterback out of Mission, Kansas is a 4-star prospect per 247 Sports and the No. 4 pro-style quarterback in the entire nation. Since his commitment to Wisconsin, many of the blue-blood programs, such as Clemson, Alabama, Michigan and Ohio State have all tried to sway Mertz, but have been to no avail up to this point.

Any hope that Mertz may have left for the competing schools in the race for his commitment is now gone as Mertz has shut the door on his recruiting trail and affirmed his goal to attend the Wisconsin. Normally the type of player that the Badgers would lose in the past, especially at the quarterback position, they now are closing in on one of their highest ranked classes ever.

Mertz officially announced his hard commit to the Badgers via Twitter:

Mertz will finish his senior year at Blue Valley North High School in Kansas before joining the Badgers in 2019. It is expected he will not see the field right away, and could even redshirt as current Badgers quarterback Alex Hornibrook will be a senior at that time.

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Known to be defensive-minded and run heavy, the Badgers just added a major weapon to their arsenal and are now showing signs of patching up the one area that has given them problems in the past.