Freshman Carter Smith, a Bishop Verot grad, provided spark for Wisconsin over Washington
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MADISON – The way Carter Smith runs the ball says a lot about him.
Wisconsin’s freshman quarterback doesn’t shy away from contact. In fact, often he seeks it. Sometimes during fall camp he was allowed to take off his non-contact quarterback jersey and go completely live during the team’s scrimmages.
It was that edge that the 6-foot-3, 200-pound freshman from Bishop Verot proudly brought to the field Saturday, Nov. 8.
“I feel like I bring a lot of physicalness and toughness,” Smith said. “Hopefully, the guys rally around that.”
Smith is the fourth quarterback Wisconsin has used this season. After Danny O’Neil went down with an apparent leg injury Saturday, Smith played every series but one during the Badgers’ 13-10 victory over Washington.
“Definitely some jitters walking into the huddle, but I looked at everyone and they all had a good, confident look on them,” Smith said. “So it’s like, ‘All right, let’s go, saddle up,’ and took it from there.”
His performance wasn’t pretty – he completed 3 of 12 passes for 8 yards – but it was effective enough to help the Badgers snap a six-game losing streak, an 11-game skid versus Power Four opponents and a 0-for-10 drought for UW under Luke Fickell against ranked teams.
Wisconsin coaches give Carter Smith a conservative game plan
The UW coaches put Smith in positions to succeed, and that meant leaning on his running ability. With him under center the Badgers‘ offense relied greatly on option reads, toss sweeps, and QB runs between the tackles.
Smith finished with 47 yards in 15 carries and scored the game’s only touchdown on a 2-yard run in the third quarter.
Wisconsin managed just 205 yards of total offense, but it also didn’t put the ball in harm’s way with many throws downfield.
Smith was pretty much all the Badgers had at quarterback. With O’Neil done for the day, the continued absence of Billy Edwards (sprained knee) and Hunter Simmons’ run as QB1 on ice, the Badgers were in sink-or-swim mode with Smith, a four-star prospect in high school who racked up 11,000 yards combined passing and rushing in Florida.
Fickell said Smith gave the team a chance, hope. He definitely brought some energy to the crowd, who cheered his entrance into the game.
“Even a little bit of energy, those things are contagious,” Fickell said. “And we all know he wasn’t perfect and we all know that there are some things that you may be a little bit more limited to, but he brought you some fire, he brought you some spark, he brought you some hope, and most importantly for me, he took care of the football.”
Carter Smith ties it up for @BadgerFootball 🙌
📺: @BigTenNetworkpic.twitter.com/qb70PCbUBt
— Big Ten Football (@B1Gfootball) November 9, 2025
Wisconsin runs the ball 72% of the time in Carter Smith’s debut
As Wisconsin’s losing streak grew and the team struggled to get quality play at quarterback, fans and media began to ask if Smith would get a shot.
Fickell, however, said the process didn’t start until during the team’s second bye week. Getting Smith on the field meant building a game plan suited to his skill set, which is closer to O’Neil’s than Edwards’ or Simmons’.
The result was a game plan that yielded 47 runs and 18 passes. When Wisconsin was in an obvious passing situation late in the first half, Simmons took the snaps.
Smith gained 65 yards in 13 carries when his sack yardage isn’t taken from his total. Six of those runs went for 5 yards or longer. Two were first-down conversions and one resulted in a 2-yard touchdown run, which after the extra point, tied the game 10-10 with 6:26 to go in the third quarter.
“It’s something I’ve dreamed of for a really long time,” he said of the touchdown. “So, to be able to do that and get in there and look at all the fans and turn around and have all my boys right there, it was a pretty surreal moment for me.”
Another one of those moments came after Smith took a knee with about 30 seconds left and the final seconds of the clock ran down.
The team began to celebrate. Fans rushed the field. Wisconsin’s losing streak was dead and its freshman QB played a key role in making that happen.
“It was a lot,” Smith said. “At first I was trying to take it in and then it all kind of happened so quickly. But it was just another surreal moment for me.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Badgers freshman Carter Smith sparks Wisconsin football’s win over Washington
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