Wisconsin, former Mississippi State QB Braedyn Locke plans to enter NCAA Transfer Portal

Wisconsin quarterback Braedyn Locke plans to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal, he announced on Wednesday. Locke began his college career at Mississippi State.

Locke was thrust into the starting role in both 2023 and 2024 as the quarterbacks Wisconsin had starting got injured. He played in 16 games in two seasons with the Badgers.

“Thank you to the University of Wisconsin, the coaches, and my teammates for an unforgettable 2 years. I’ll always cherish my time here. I will be entering the transfer portal with 2 years of eligibility remaining,” Locke said in a post on social media announcing his decision.

Wisconsin recently made a change at offensive coordinator

Wisconsin is hiring Kansas offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes to the same role under head coach Luke Fickell in Madison. The Badgers recently fired offensive coordinator Phil Longo.

Longo was hired by Fickell to bring an Air Raid element to the Wisconsin offense, an evolution that never seemingly took. Grimes, who comes from an offensive line background, would seemingly set up the Badgers to return to a more familiar offensive operation.

Grimes has served as an offensive coordinator since 2018, when he took over the role for BYU. He coached in that position through the 2020 season, at which point he joined the staff under Dave Aranda at Baylor, also serving as OC there for three seasons from 2021-23.

The 2024 season was Grimes’ first with the Jayhawks, and not appears as if it could be his lone year in Lawrence.

Fickell opened a Monday press conference shortly after the firing by discussing Longo’s ouster at Wisconsin. He wanted to discuss it not just since it was his first time to receive questions about it but also so that the Badgers can look to their final two games. As for the dismissal, he felt it was the right choice and right time to make it for their program.

“Alright, well, obviously, I’ll start by, you know, talking about and addressing the situation, the change that we’re going through and then hopefully we can move forward on to, you know, a big football game that’s coming up and make sure that we all get ourselves back into, you know, the task that we have at hand,” Fickell began.

“Just so you know, on Sunday, I made a decision to what we needed to do. Then, you know, came in, obviously had a conversation with Phil. And, you know, pretty much decided that we needed to do it now,” explained Fickell. “This is never something I ever, ever envisioned doing or wanted to do and especially doing it when there’s still games to be played in a season. But felt like, for all involved and, most importantly, for our program and the kids in that locker room, what we needed to do right now was to move forward.”