Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson has led the No. 4 Badgers to a 6-0 record coming into this weekend's showdown with No. 15 Michigan State. He has the country's best quarterback rating. He's a serious Heisman Trophy contender (Wisconsin's athletic department calls his campaign "RussellManiaXVI" after his jersey number). Last weekend, he even caught a touchdown pass.

As any seasoned college-football fan knows, the ability to enjoy this sport often requires the parallel ability to endure the occasional glimpse at its unsavory side—the predatory recruiting, the salaries of the coaches, the occasional NCAA rules violation. There are always inconvenient details to brush aside, judgments to suspend and ethical gymnastics to perform.

But this season, Wisconsin fans are going through something entirely new. Wilson, who may be the best quarterback the school has ever seen, and who might lead the football program to its first national title, hadn't played for Wisconsin before this year. In fact, he hadn't even stepped on campus until July.

To make the situation even more unusual, Wilson isn't pursuing an undergraduate degree at Wisconsin: He already has one from North Carolina State, the school whose football team he quarterbacked last season. Wilson is, for all intents and purposes, a hired gun—a college-football free agent.

"When we're looking back on it, it might be kind of weird to think about how this all happened in one season," said Adam Hoge, the editor of Bucky's 5th Quarter, a Wisconsin sports blog. "But the way he's fit in, it doesn't seem like he's an outsider at all."