Mike Farrell Sports

College Football Recruiting, Opinion, and Analysis

Upon Further National Review Week 12: The Martyred Chryst

Wisconsin and Nebraska share tight, blood-red, self-destructive ties.

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Oct 1
Oct 1

By Rock Westfall

Wisconsin and Nebraska share tight, blood-red, self-destructive ties.

A Godfather by a Godfather

On January 2, 1990, Notre Dame defensive coordinator Barry Alvarez arrived in Madison, Wisconsin, without sleep. The previous evening, Alvarez and the Fighting Irish won the Orange Bowl 21-6 over Colorado in Miami, Florida. It was the perfect parting gift for Alvarez, who was taking over as head coach of the Wisconsin Badgers.

Alvarez’s boss, Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz, strongly urged Alvarez not to take the Wisconsin job. It was a coaching graveyard. From 1964 through 1989, Wisconsin produced only six winning seasons and three bowl games. 

The Badgers were coming off a 2-9 campaign under Don Morton, who went 6-27 in his three seasons in Madison. Wisconsin had not been nationally relevant since an impressive period from 1952 through 1962 when it went to three Rose Bowls, losing them all.

But Alvarez arrived with determination and a chip on his shoulder. He also knew if he failed, the odds were that he would never be a head coach ever again. Alvarez was fearless. He had a formula learned from playing for one of the greatest coaches in college football history.

At his introductory press conference, Alvarez warned fans to get season tickets before it was too late. 

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The Wisconsin Way

Barry Alvarez believed Wisconsin should win at football. First, the state loved the game. Second, there were plenty of what Alvarez called “big people” in the state. And third, passionate fans and the UW administration were starving and motivated for a winner.

Alvarez determined that his program’s heart, soul, and brawn would come from inside the Badger State but that its feet and hands would come from elsewhere. He would mold his group with toughness, tenacity, and accountability.

Alvarez spent his college years at Nebraska, playing under legendary Hall of Famer Bob Devaney from 1965 through 1967. Devaney inherited an eerily similar mess upon taking over the Cornhuskers in 1962. Alvarez learned first-hand what it took to build a winner in a state with plenty of farm kids but little population or fertile recruiting territory.

Devaney was the Godfather of a Nebraska dynasty that won five national championships from 1970 through 1997, with several other near misses. Nebraska was a perennial top-10 program from 1963 through 2001.

When Alvarez began playing for the Big Red, the team captain was a fullback named Frank Solich. The scrappy “Fearless Frankie” was a member of Devaney’s first recruiting class and named All-Big Eight in his final season. Solich would later become a top Nebraska assistant under Devaney’s legendary successor, Tom Osborne.

Solich and Alvarez would carve interesting, fascinating paths in the following years.

Coming Up Roses 

By 1993, Alvarez’s formula kicked into overdrive and produced the first of three Rose Bowl championships under his leadership. The Alvarez program was known for a powerful running game led by massive but well-schooled offensive linemen and running backs who would become legendary for amassing huge yardage totals. One of those backs, Ron Dayne, won the 1999 Heisman Trophy.

The Wisconsin Way was more about character and culture than five-star recruits. Players worked hard under the demanding and relentless taskmaster Alvarez, spawning a contagious pride. That program pride was so infectious that Alvarez’s warning about scarce tickets proved prophetic. 

Wisconsin, like Nebraska, developed the reputation of “traveling well” with large contingents of red-clad fans invading enemy stadiums. The Rose Bowl committee loved hosting the Badgers, where half the stadium was a sea of red portrayed in overhead TV blimp shots.

Alvarez retired as the Savior and Godfather of the Wisconsin football program in 2005 but remained athletic director. It was the exact path that Bob Devaney took at Nebraska. And at both places, insiders would keep their respective teams humming. Both schools were touted as the ultimate developmental programs.  

The Next Generation

Devaney was followed by his hand-picked successor, Tom Osborne, who ended up in the Hall of Fame with three national championships. Osborne never won less than nine games in his career (1973-1997), taking 13 conference championships. Like Alvarez, he would become Nebraska’s athletic director and hand-pick his successor, longtime assistant Frank Solich.

Upon retirement, Alvarez chose his defensive coordinator, Bret Bielema, to take over as head coach. Alvarez and Bielema worked closely with weekly meetings to discuss the program and plot. Bielema won three Big Ten titles and posted an impressive .739 win percentage, which bested Alvarez’s .609. Of course, Barry did the heavy lifting to get the program off the ground.

Yet Bielema was never fully accepted by the Wisconsin faithful and tired of serving under the shadow of the Godfather. So he bolted for Arkansas and the chance to run his program without a heavy-handed boss. 

The odd-fitting Gary Andersen followed Bielema before bailing for Oregon State after only two seasons. Like Bielema, he found Alvarez to be overbearing. But Alvarez wasted no time finding the perfect man to take over long-term.

A Native and Favorite Son 

Paul Chryst was a Wisconsin thoroughbred. He was born and raised in Madison and is the son of a football coach. Chryst was a Badger QB in college and later served as offensive coordinator under Bielema. After three years as head coach of Pitt, he returned home to replace Andersen.

Chryst wasted no time making Wisconsin a nationally relevant program. Wisconsin went 13-1 in his third season, routing Michigan 24-10 on Senior Day and climbing to third in the polls. The Badgers lost the Big Ten championship game 27-21 to Ohio State, one score away from the College Football Playoff.

In 2019, the Badgers clobbered Michigan 35-14 and climbed to as high as sixth in the polls. They led Ohio State 21-7 at halftime in the Big Ten championship game before the Buckeyes speed took over in a 34-21 final. Still, Wisconsin got a great consolation prize with a Rose Bowl trip. But the Badgers made too many mistakes in a 28-27 giveaway loss to Oregon.

Paul Chryst led Wisconsin to final CFP rankings of 8th (2016), 6th (2017), and 8th (2019). On the home front, he had signed coveted four-star recruit Graham Mertz as the quarterback of the future. An era of glory seemed to beckon for Wisconsin.

The Best Recruit and Worst Fit

In 2019, Mertz bided his time on the bench as Wisconsin thrived under one of its prototypical QBs, Jack Coan. Like Alex Hornibrook before him, Coan was not a coveted NFL prospect. But he was a tough and smart game manager. The type of Wisconsin QB that always complemented its stable of superstar running backs.

Mertz was unlike anything Wisconsin had ever seen. He was seen as a next-level quarterback who could do more than manage games. And that proved to be a fatal problem for Chryst. Mertz got into his head.

The 2021 season is the best example of the Mertz riddle. The Badgers dropped three of their first four games, including blowouts to Notre Dame (41-13) and Michigan (38-17). The Badgers lost their physicality, power running, and play-action pass roots. Chryst tried to develop a more intricate passing attack. It failed miserably, damaging Wisconsin’s rumbling brand in the process.

Back to Neanderball

With a 2021 season on the brink, Chryst returned to the basics. Running back Braelon Allen (1268 yards rushing, 6.8 YPC) and the offensive line powered Wisconsin to seven consecutive wins to save the season, which ended with a 9-4 record after a Las Vegas Bowl win over Arizona State.

The rebound should have been a lesson about the effectiveness of the Wisconsin Way. Yet it was not.

The Recruiting Myth 

There is a revisionist history about Paul Chryst and what is said to be his weak recruiting. The truth is that Chryst produced three of the best recruiting classes in Wisconsin history from 2019 through 2021. The 2021 class cracked the top 20 in the national rankings of most recruiting services. That was after UW cracked the top 30 in 2019 and 2020. Such recruiting rankings were unheard of for Wisconsin.

Wisconsin’s problems were not due to recruiting. The problem was changing the offensive formula to accommodate Mertz, who finished with a miserable 10/11 TD/INT ratio and 6.9 yards per attempt in 2021.  Ironically, Wisconsin was more successful with game manager QBs.  

Inside Jobs

Frank Solich led the Nebraska Cornhuskers to the 1999 Big 12 championship in his second season as head coach. In 2001, led by Heisman Trophy QB Eric Crouch, the Huskers made the national championship game, where Miami routed them. Tom Osborne suffered his share of blowout losses in bowl games, so it was not a big deal then.

In December 2002, Nebraska alum and former recruiting coordinator Steve Pederson took over as the Cornhusker athletic director. Solich seemed secure with yet another Nebraska man as his boss.

But after a 7-7 campaign in 2002, Solich was feeling the heat. Longtime assistants Craig Bohl and George Darlington were fired in ugly desperation. Despite improving to 9-3 in 2003, Solich was fired by his fellow alum Pederson, who was eager to reinvent the wheel.  Instead, Pederson fell on his face. After failing to attract a name-brand candidate, the unprepared Pederson settled on Bill Callahan, who lasted only four years.

Bo Pelini followed Callahan and, in his tenure (2008-2014), never won less than nine games in a season. But he was fired by athletic director Shawn Eichorst. Ironically, Eichorst had previously served as Alvarez’s assistant athletic director at Wisconsin.  Since the volatile firebrand Pelini departed after the 2014 season, Nebraska has consistently lost, with its last bowl game in 2016.  

On July 1, 2021, Wisconsin again hired one of its own as its new athletic director. Chris McIntosh, a UW alum and player under Barry Alvarez, took command. During the long process, one of the board members searching for and interviewing candidates was Paul Chryst.

Two months after taking over as AD, McIntosh gave Chryst a raise. It was the beginning of the end.

Bielema’s Homecoming and the Last Supper of Chryst

Wisconsin flopped out of the gate for the second consecutive year with a 2-3 start to the 2022 season. On October 1, 2022, Bret Bielema brought his lightly-regarded Illinois Fighting Illini to Camp Randall Stadium to face the Badgers. Illinois led 14-10 at halftime. In the UW locker room, Chryst screamed for his players to “Draw a line in the sand!” Instead, Wisconsin laid down and died in a 34-10 loss. McIntosh fired Chryst the next day. Chryst left Wisconsin with a third-best 67 career wins, one behind Bielema’s 68. Oh, the irony.

A Fickell Change and Bungled Beginning 

McIntosh, like Steve Pederson, was eager to put his stamp on the program. He hired Luke Fickell as his head coach. Fickell was widely acclaimed as a great choice after he built the Cincinnati Bearcats into a nationally relevant program. UC was the first Group of Five team to crack the College Football Playoff.

McIntosh and Fickell gushed about modernizing the Wisconsin program and its offense. Wisconsin would blend the air raid with effective running and elite recruiting.  Preseason expectations and excitement were high in the Badger State. But a lackluster 5-5 start has killed interest and enthusiasm.

Fickell’s honeymoon ended after last week’s putrid 24-10 loss to a Northwestern team playing with an interim coach. His sideline demeanor was of a furious, lost man.

The stunning loss of Wisconsin’s traditional personality has set off alarms. The once-celebrated offensive line can’t bust a grape. The tough-as-nails defense is no longer feared or dominant. Players are calling out each other in public for lack of effort and commitment. A program built on pride seems to have lost it.

Wisconsin has 14 new transfer players on its two-deep roster. They have no concept or appreciation of the Badger program, history, or culture.  Nor does the outsider Fickell.  And it shows.

The Badgers have been decimated by injuries in 2022. But the lack of fight and effort has turned off fans and alarmed observers.

Family Reunion Saturday Night 

On Saturday night, a pair of 5-5 teams will fight to attain eligibility for a minor bowl game. Kickoff on NBC is at 7:30 p.m. ET.  Wisconsin and Nebraska have numerous ties and similar problems, most of which were self-inflicted betrayals of proven formulas, cultures, and coaches.

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