Assessing how Tyler Van Dyke will fit in at Wisconsin

After a rough end to his career at Miami, quarterback Tyler Van Dyke is hoping for a fresh start at Wisconsin under Luke Fickell. Van Dyke had a promising start with the Hurricanes but slowly saw that fizzle out over the past two seasons before being benched toward the end of this year.

His arrival in Madison now represents a chance for both he and the Badgers to get back on track after a disappointing 2023. Wisconsin finished Fickell’s inaugural season with a 7-5 record after a plan to implement a new offense with transfer QB Tanner Mordecai didn’t quite work out.

The Badgers are hopeful they’ve found the right transfer this offseason to lead to different results. On3‘s Andy Staples explained on his Tuesday podcast why this is a move that could work out for both sides.

“This whole season wasn’t what Wisconsin hoped for,” he said. “The offense wasn’t nearly as explosive as they wanted. I remember the Washington State game early in the season thinking if they had more speed on this team this offense would work. With the lineman they have and with the backs they have, they’re gonna run the ball pretty well. You saw when Phil Longo was the OC at North Carolina, when they had good backs and a decent offensive line, they ran the ball a lot but they also threw it very efficiently. Their receivers on the outside were just not particularly dynamic at Wisconsin.

“That’s something Luke Fickell and company have to take care of. Phil Longo and all the assistant coaches need to get on that and get that better. Tyler Van Dyke will come in pretty familiar with this offense. There will be concepts familiar to what he ran last year at Miami with Shannon Dawson as the OC.”

Wisconsin averaged around 10 more passing attempts per game in 2023 under Longo and Fickell than it did the previous season. Unfortunately, that didn’t translate to much better results. The Badgers still ranked a middling seventh in the Big Ten with 207.0 passing yards per game.

Van Dyke flashed big potential in his first season as a starter at Miami in 2021 to win the ACC Offensive Rookie of the Year. He started in the final nine games of that year to finish with 2,931 yards and 25 touchdowns to only six interceptions.

However, a head coaching change ahead of 2022 seemed to cause to quarterback to take a step back. He failed to surpass his yardage total in either of the next two seasons and threw a career-high 12 interceptions this past year compared to only 19 touchdowns.

Still, there is hope he can regain his 2021 form with a change of scenery.

“There were times, especially late in Manny Diaz’s final season at Miami, that you thought Tyler Van Dyke is going to be a superstar,” Staples said. “This is a guy that we’re gonna be talking about leaving early for the NFL. Then it just sort of fell apart in the two years under Mario Cristobal. So perhaps Van Dyke has a renaissance at Wisconsin. Perhaps he’s what they need to get that offense going.”

With realignment set to shake up the Big Ten next season, Wisconsin finds itself under pressure to step up its game on the offensive end. The Badgers have relied on the running game in the past, but will need a more balanced attack if they are to compete with the conference’s best.

They’ll hope Van Dyke can be the beginning of that change as they aim to be Playoff contenders in the coming seasons.

“The road gets a lot tougher for Wisconsin with the teams that are coming into the Big Ten,” Staples said. “Clearly what Wisconsin is doing with Fickell taking the job and hiring Longo as his OC is a sense that Wisconsin is trying to win the Big Ten. They have looked at the future and said, ‘OK, there’s no divisions anymore. We can’t worry about trying to win the Big Ten West. It does not do us any good to be the best of Illinois, Iowa, Northwestern, Nebraska, Purdue. You gotta be as good as Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Oregon, Washington.

“That’s really hard, but you don’t have to be No. 1. You can probably be No. 3 or No. 4 and get in the Playoff.”