A tale as old as time in college football is coaches being fired even when they aren’t doing THAT bad or because they aren’t meeting a school’s unrealistic expectations. Take Frank Solich’s short stint at Nebraska as an earlier example. He takes over for a legend in Tom Osburne, which obviously means lofty expectations to take the keys to the Nebrask Ferrari and continue to win National Titles. Overall, Solich didn’t do badly as Nebraska’s head coach (outside of a 7-7 2002 season), but winning 9+ games wasn’t enough for Nebraska, so they let him go. They’ve had one respectable coach since in Bo Pelini, whom they fired for virtually the same reasons as Solich. Nebraska is still to this day drowning in the misery of their bad decisions
We’ve seen it many other times too, such as LSU firing Les Miles (minus the one-hit wonder 2019 year), Michigan letting Lloyd Carr go, etc. Some schools tend to set unrealistic, lofty expectations for a coach and when those expectations aren’t met, the coach is fired. This is exactly the case for Wisconsin letting Paul Chryst go.
Let’s be realistic for a second, Wisconsin is a tier 2 type of school in the FBS. I would classify a tier 2 school as a program that’s not bad, but not elite, usually in the 8-10 win range on a yearly basis and has some good success here and there. Paul Chryst did just that at Wisconsin, winning 10+ games in 4 out of 8 seasons (the same amount as Barry Alvarez and Bret Bielema) and winning 8+ games in 6 out of 8 seasons. Mind you, 2020 was a shortened year because of COVID-19 and they went 4-3 that year. They were 2-3 this season before he was fired and, in an open B1G West, who knows if he could have turned things around.
Paul Chryst finished 67-26, and was 6-1 in bowl games.#B1Gstats x #B1Gtoday pic.twitter.com/Hx0yJECx8P
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) October 4, 2022
Chryst was also an impressive 6-1 in bowl games during his tenure, with the lone loss coming in 2019 in the Rose Bowl against Oregon, a game Wisconsin should have won. He also won three West division titles, but was 0-3 in the Big Ten Championship Game, losing twice to Ohio State and once to Penn State. But let’s be fair here, The B1G West hasn’t won a single Big Ten Title Game since the divisions were realigned in 2014, so can you really hold not winning the conference title against Chryst when no other West team has? Especially when he’s won more West titles than any other coach?
The most damning thing about Chryst’s firing is finding out Wisconsin doesn’t even have a recruiting department for at least 8 months.
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Wisconsin should be ashamed of themselves. All that money from the Big Ten TV deal and they out here without a recruiting department in 2022. https://t.co/vejrR0vRKT
— JBook. (@JBook_37) October 6, 2022
How on God’s green Earth can Chryst or any Wisconsin coach keep the program afloat without a recruiting department for that period of time?
The odds were stacked against Chryst heavily it seems and it didn’t help that Graham Mertz went from promising to major flop during his time as the Badgers QB. If Chryst gets a suitable QB in recruiting or the transfer portal, who knows where Wisconsin could be right now or by season’s end.
In the end, they went 9-4 last year and that is a respectable record for a program like Wisconsin. While I do think Jim Leonhard can be successful for the Badgers if he does things right, I think Paul Chryst was the perfect fit for them and they were better off with him at the helm. Making this move was a serious rolling of the dice and they may just join the ranks of Nebraska, LSU, and others and regret their decisions. Wisconsin made their bed, and now, they have no choice but to lie in it and see what happens.
