Can Tyler Van Dyke recapture magic at Wisconsin after tumultuous Miami ending?

MADISON, Wis. — Tyler Van Dyke is up front about the fact the plan was never to be here.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t grateful for another opportunity to prove himself as a quarterback in his fifth college football season. It’s just that, 11 months ago, the mere idea of this situation at Wisconsin seemed unfathomable.

At that time, Van Dyke was four games into the season at Miami — his third year as the team’s starter — and had the Hurricanes at 4-0 and ranked 17th in the country. He had completed 74.7 percent of his passes with 11 touchdowns and just one interception. The only quarterback with a better pass efficiency rating nationally was reigning Heisman Trophy winner and future No. 1 NFL Draft pick Caleb Williams.

Everything appeared to be trending toward Van Dyke fulfilling his professional dream after the season. Until it wasn’t.

“You look back at it, you’re like, ‘I wish some of that wouldn’t have happened and I would maybe not be here in my fifth year,’” Van Dyke said. “Which, I’m glad I’m here. I think it’s a great opportunity. But you know how it is. You want to leave as early as possible when you’re ready to go to the NFL. But everything happens for a reason.”

Wisconsin opens its season with a home game against Western Michigan on Friday night. Van Dyke has earned the Badgers’ starting quarterback job for a team eager to find more success in Year 2 under Luke Fickell. And while dwelling on the past won’t get Van Dyke where he wants to go, it does inform his motivation.

What happened during the rest of last season at Miami — a difficult stretch attributed to poor team and individual play as well as a substantial injury — is part of why Van Dyke seeks personal vindication, or an “opportunity to get some revenge for myself,” as he puts it. He is eager to show how high his ceiling can be with a fresh start and new pieces around him.

“People can paint it out to be whatever they want it to be,” Van Dyke said of his past. “But I know what I’m capable of. I know what I can bring to the table.”

Sitting in a room adjacent to Wisconsin’s indoor practice facility, a black Badgers backpack sporting his last name in tow, Van Dyke slips a cellphone out of his shorts pocket and scrolls through the images from last season. One picture shows a gruesome purple bruise that begins near the top of his right leg and extends toward his shin. Another picture, taken from above his legs, reveals a right knee so swollen the kneecap isn’t visible.

Van Dyke suffered a Morel-Lavallee lesion when his right knee hit the ground as he was tackled in the first half of a game against North Carolina on Oct. 14. His skin separated from the muscle and fat layer with an injury most commonly associated with high-velocity traumas such as a car crash.

“If Tyler doesn’t get hurt, he’s in the NFL right now,” said Van Dyke’s father, Bill.

Miami’s season took a turn in the wrong direction one week earlier during a game against Georgia Tech in which Van Dyke threw three interceptions. The Hurricanes were still in position to win until coach Mario Cristobal inexplicably called for a handoff while leading rather than taking a knee on a third-down run with under 40 seconds remaining and Georgia Tech out of timeouts.

Miami running back Donald Chaney Jr. fumbled, and Georgia Tech recovered and went 74 yards to win the game on a touchdown with one second remaining. Bill Van Dyke said the moment “changed everything” because of what he believed was a lack of public communication by coaches while Van Dyke shouldered the blame for his own turnover mistakes. Then came the loss to North Carolina and Van Dyke’s injury.

“He was in one of those pressurized bags,” said Van Dyke’s mother, Amy. “They tried to take the blood out several times. It didn’t heal like they wanted it to heal.”

Van Dyke missed one game against Clemson but returned to play against Virginia. He threw a pair of interceptions in an overtime victory and tossed three more interceptions in a loss to North Carolina State. Van Dyke acknowledged he didn’t have the strength to push off his rear leg, which led to underthrown passes.

“Obviously, I felt good enough to go out there and win for us,” Van Dyke said. “But I wasn’t myself.”

The moment Van Dyke said he knew he was going to transfer came the next week in advance of the Florida State game, when he learned from coaches that freshman Emory Williams would start in his place. Van Dyke had not performed well in his two previous games, throwing no touchdowns and five interceptions with limited mobility. But he said he was beginning to feel better and didn’t appreciate what he believed to be a lack of public transparency by the staff in not acknowledging the quarterback change was injury-based.

“They publicly left me out to dry,” Van Dyke said. “They didn’t explain the whole situation. It was more just, ‘We’re going to go with this guy,’ and didn’t explain anything else.”

Van Dyke returned after Williams sustained an injury against Florida State and started the final two games. He threw three touchdowns with no interceptions in those starts. But by then, it was clear to Van Dyke that he needed to make a change.

Tyler Van Dyke, sacked here Nov. 18 against Louisville, had regained the starting job after a teammate’s injury but says he could see the writing on the wall. (Megan Briggs / Getty Images)

Van Dyke entered the transfer portal three days after Miami’s regular-season finale. He said he spoke with Wisconsin offensive coordinator Phil Longo by phone one day later and arranged for an on-campus visit two weeks later. The fit felt natural.

Wisconsin required a veteran quarterback capable of starting. Van Dyke had familiarity with the program because he visited twice with his family as a high school recruit out of Glastonbury, Conn., under the previous coaching staff. He passed on Wisconsin then, in part because the Badgers already had their quarterback of the future in Graham Mertz, who was one grade older.

Van Dyke also knew Longo, whom he spent time with as a recruit on a visit to Ole Miss. As offensive coordinator at North Carolina in 2021, Longo watched Van Dyke win ACC Rookie of the Year by throwing 25 touchdowns and six interceptions. Van Dyke said he saw Longo as a man who could unlock his potential in a way similar to what then-Miami offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee did in an up-tempo Air Raid system.

Wisconsin represented his only visit during a weekend in which the Badgers also hosted Toledo transfer QB Dequan Finn.

“I think that when you come off a tough year, if you’re able to take ownership, if you’re able to be humble about the things that have happened, then it’s a positive,” Fickell said. “That’s one of the things that I was most excited about is it wasn’t guaranteed that he was going to be the starter. And sometimes guys say things and do they really mean them? Because you don’t know them. It’s a short amount of time that you’ve had an opportunity to get to know him a little bit before he was brought into the program.

“But in my heart, I felt like, hey, he had gone through some ups and downs. He had some really good, high moments. He’s had some low moments. I had seen him respond and come back at the end of the year last year. I felt like those are the best things that you could possibly have.”

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Longo, meanwhile, had seen enough of Van Dyke to understand what the right system and an injury-free season could mean for him. Van Dyke suffered a third-degree AC joint sprain in his right shoulder that wrecked his 2022 season. He also played through three torn ligaments in a finger on his throwing hand that he sustained last preseason. Constant change on Miami’s coaching staff didn’t help.

“What people don’t know is he played extremely hurt the third year,” Longo said. “He also was on the third year of a new offense and a new coordinator. I don’t know if that approach that they took the third year was conducive to Tyler, but it’s not my decision at the time when he was at Miami and I don’t want to judge the OCs that are there.

“But I just think we have to be careful and make sure that we try to do the things that feature what he does well. And the decision-making part of it is good. The big arm is really a bonus for us and his mobility is a bonus. So the three things you would hope to have in a quarterback, we have right now.”

Van Dyke’s approach when offseason workouts began in January was to lead through action, to show his new teammates how hard he was willing to work. As he gained more confidence during practices, he demonstrated more vocal leadership and organized throwing sessions with receivers over the summer.

“I think the one thing I kind of figured out about Tyler really early on is that his give-a-sh– want factor is really high,” said Wisconsin receiver CJ Williams, who lived with Van Dyke for a couple of weeks in the offseason while between housing arrangements. “This dude wants to be elite and he wants to be ultimately the best quarterback in the nation, the No. 1 guy off the board next year.”

Van Dyke, who is close to a scratch golfer, has connected with teammates over a shared love of golf. He said he has played at the nine-hole Glen Golf Park near the stadium with kicker Nathanial Vakos, punter Atticus Bertrams and long snapper Cayson Pfeiffer. Safeties Austin Brown, Preston Zachman and Charlie Jarvis have also played alongside him. Brown said Van Dyke has spent time at his house and said the quarterback has “come a long way since spring,” looking as comfortable as ever on the field.

Van Dyke’s parents say their son has always been determined and competitive, which runs in the family. Bill played football at Division III Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., and Amy was a member of the volleyball team there. Bill said Tyler “recognizes the level of effort he’s putting in this year is above and beyond where it’s been.” Van Dyke traveled to California in May to work with his quarterback coach, Jordan Palmer, and met with him again in Chicago around the July Fourth holiday.

Van Dyke finished last season with eight touchdowns and 11 interceptions after his hot start, 10 of which occurred during a four-game stretch at midseason. Bill said there is a perception from those who don’t know Van Dyke, formulated over the past two seasons and seemingly crystallized during that tough stretch a year ago, that he believes doesn’t align with his son’s ability.

“He was a really good quarterback in ’21, but now he’s not a good quarterback?” Bill said. “That’s just not true. He’s just as good, and he’s better than he was then.”

Tyler Van Dyke said he believes Longo’s approach caters to his talent, noting the freedom he has to change plays and fix potential protection issues, as well as thrive as a runner in the read-option game — all differences from his time at Miami. Wisconsin’s offense sputtered under Longo last season. But there is optimism that Van Dyke’s ability, coupled with more understanding from returning players of the system, can yield better results.

So far, Van Dyke has been exactly what Wisconsin was seeking. And the Badgers have represented the change Van Dyke needed. Now the games begin with much for him to prove.

“It just feels like a fresh new breath, a restart where I can get out there and kind of throw out the past,” Van Dyke said. “Even though I did some really good stuff, throw away the bad stuff and reset mentally and come into a place where the team is solid, defense is always good, offense is solid. All I’ve got to do is come in and be me, be consistent and do what I’ve got to do.”

(Top photo: Mark Stewart / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA Today)