It just got a little less crowded under center for the Wisconsin Badgers football team, as two of the squad’s quarterbacks have been ruled out for the 2012 season.
Redshirt junior Jon Budmayr and incoming freshman Bart Houston have both suffered injuries that will force them to miss the upcoming season, according to head coach Bret Bielema.
“Jon Budmayr is a guy that, unless something miraculously happens, won’t be involved with us [this fall],” Bielema said at the “Badger Day” event May 30. “Then also Bart Houston, because of the shoulder surgery he had, he’ll be with us in the fall but he won’t be participating.”
Budmayr has been a prime candidate for the starting job in each of the last two seasons, but was forced to miss all of 2011 due to nerve issues in his shoulder.
His shoulder has healed, but hip surgery will keep the Woodstock, Ill., native out for all of 2012.
Houston, a highly touted recruit out of California’s De La Salle high school, is expected to be a big part of the Badgers’ future, but Bielema planned on redshirting the young signal caller even before his surgery.
“He was doing a nice job, but he has a pre-existing shoulder condition that needs to get taken care of,” Bielema said. “We thought he was going to be a redshirt guy.”
Wisconsin is left with three returning backups in redshirt freshman Joel Stave, redshirt sophomore Joe Brennan and redshirt senior Curt Phillips. The three will have to fight with redshirt junior Danny O’Brien, an incoming transfer from Maryland, for the starting job in 2012.
Stave, a former walk-on from Greenfield, Wis., ended the spring as the No. 1 quarterback, but many expect O’Brien to be the starter by week one.
