Inside Chryst's firing at Wisconsin...
The Athletic had an interesting piece on Chryst's firing. It's paywalled, of course, so I won't bother with a link. It was death by a thousand cuts. Some takeaways:
He was universally regarded as a great guy.
His biggest strength was also his greatest weakness--too nice. Wouldn't fire anyone.
He made Mork-like personnel moves rather than replacing people.
He was fired not only for the product on the field, but the trajectory of the program.
Recruiting was a mess--not organized and understaffed, and he didn't address it.
Jimmy Rolder visited for a game, and NOBODY even talked to him. Nobody even knew he was coming.
He put all his eggs in to Graham Mertz's basket and didn't bring in a grad transfer to challenge him. Caleb Williams reportedly was considering Wisconsin, and Chryst didn't even speak to him.
There was not a lot of accountability for the players.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:26 PM ^
We're gonna see if Mel Tucker has the ability to adapt this offseason (or in-season) this year. He can't let Scottie Hazelton keep his job. Hazleton is just an atrocious DC. If Mel doesn't cut him loose and revamp his staff and sort out that team's transfer-dependence, I actually believe Sparty might fire him after another lousy season to save themselves the embarrassment of paying a coach that much money for such little results for the next 8 or whatever years.
October 6th, 2022 at 9:48 PM ^
But is Hazelton actually the problem? Tucker's a defensive guy. Are we sure this isn't his own D?
October 7th, 2022 at 6:49 AM ^
Tuck coaches the DB’s LOL
October 7th, 2022 at 8:13 AM ^
its been reported this contract is fully guaranteed so firing them won't save them a penny.
October 7th, 2022 at 2:35 AM ^
Ferentz on the hot seat? He just signed an 8 yr 56 million extension that doesn't expire until January 2030. Iowa would owe him almost 50 million dollars if they were to fire him.
October 7th, 2022 at 10:19 AM ^
The next hot seat is Kirk Ferentz if IA gets blown out by IL on Saturday, say 31-0? It could happen.
Illinois could very well win, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they won't be beating Iowa 31-0...
October 7th, 2022 at 12:21 PM ^
Iowa is the defending Big Ten West champion. Ferentz's seat is safe.
October 6th, 2022 at 7:54 PM ^
I'm not sure he even has the variety Super Tecmo supplied. I think he's just straight Tecmo. Four plays, two run and two pass.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:57 PM ^
You're making the false assumption that these three programs have untapped national championship potential and aspirations -- when, in fact, they are programs that have generally maximized themselves. Not all programs can compete with Alabama, Georgia, and Clemson. These programs have done well, and they should be careful what they wish for.
October 7th, 2022 at 9:22 AM ^
Expanded playoffs is the reason for these firings. These school ADs see an opportunity to get into the expanded playoffs if they make a change. Once in the playoff, you can upset a team and advance and that's a huge win for the school and boosters.
Heard on ESPNU radio yesterday that since the playoff started in 2014 there has been 500 million paid out in buyouts to fired coaches.
October 6th, 2022 at 9:48 PM ^
Interesting observation. One factor that should be kept in mind is expectations from the AD and school.
Fitzgerald has the safest and easiest job because he really isn't expected to win much - just a bit and after upsetting Nebraska in a very public way, may have accomplished half of what he needed to do this season. No one at NU expects regular competition for the Big Ten title. No expects the Wildcats to even win the B10 West - just be competitive and occasional slay a "name" team. He's done that for 2022 (even if the Cornhuskers have been bad for a long time - they still have name recognition among the older crowd!)
Ferentz is safe as long as the AD and everyone else politely doesn't discuss the elephant in the room - that his son is a terrible OC. The way everyone tip toes around this shows how much clout Ferentz has there. Ferentz may actually be a pretty good overall coach. Notice that had Donovan Edwards not had the awareness to cover that backward throw, it could have been easily a scoop and score making the score 20-14. Even though his teams seem dull and antiquated, the approach is pretty advanced. Usually a team will fumble or throw an interception: fortunately this didn't happen. Took a look at the Iowa sites and nearly all of the Hawkeye fan knows of their woes and they also know there isn't the political will to oust Ferentz pere and fils.
Chryst doesn't have as forgiving an AD (Barry Alvarez is gone) and Wisconsin does expect more. But with his track record of success there must be more to the situation. Maybe along with his recruiting oversights he made some other political errors there so when it looked like Jim Leonhard might be enticed away, they cut Chryst instead.
Don't expect to see NU to change - this is sort of an OK season for them. Ferentz won't be forced to change until his teams get routinely annihilated by the "bad" teams in the west - right now the team is at 1-1 just like 5 others - so he isn't worried. Wisconsin will be interesting. Can they turn it around? Or are we seeing the rise of a new resurgent Illinois?
October 7th, 2022 at 10:28 AM ^
Incorrect. Chryst didn't build a program, he took over and let Barry Alvarez guide him to success. Barry leaves, Chryst is completely lost.
For all their shortcomings, Ferentz and Fitz are phenomenal program builders, although Ferentz is at the end of his career and is attempting to get his son a HC job. It's also much harder to recruit at Northwestern, Wisconsin, and Iowa than Michigan.
Fitz and Ferentz are rock stars, Chryst was a night manager.
October 7th, 2022 at 12:23 PM ^
I wouldn't say that Fitz built Northwestern. His two predecessors each won the Big Ten.
October 7th, 2022 at 11:13 PM ^
Isn't that amazing?
October 7th, 2022 at 10:37 AM ^
I agree with some points of your post (Ferentz should have fired his son yesterday, our coaches are rock stars, etc). However, I think you are bit off on the overall theme. NW, Iowa and Wisconsin are never going to get the athletes to play and compete using all 2022 college football frippery has to offer. While I agree they all could use *some* modernizing to their offense, the best way for those colleges to win is to make a game as short as possible. That means defenses that keep everything in front of them and offensively pound away on the ground in small chunks as much as possible which in turn should keep turnovers at a minimum. While I do think Michigan is in a position to do more 2022 tactics on offense I can't say the same about those three schools. In this day and age, the only chance of survival they have is getting low ranked kids that won't transfer, develop linemen for 3 years and then try to lure teams into Lloyd ball games. I feel like the law of large numbers is never going to be on NW or Iowa's side regardless of who runs recruiting.
October 7th, 2022 at 11:17 PM ^
I think the Portal changes all of that. You are starting to see programs like them getting "4/5 stars" from top programs that are not getting playing time. Kids that they would not have a shot at recruiting when they were starry-eyed high school kids.
October 6th, 2022 at 7:12 PM ^
Not sure why you wouldn't include a link. I'm sure many here are Athletic subscribers.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:29 PM ^
Thank you.
October 7th, 2022 at 10:11 AM ^
Yeah...it takes zero effort to post the link. Thanks for that.
October 6th, 2022 at 7:14 PM ^
I read the article this morning and was struck by Chryst's serious delay in hiring a new recruiting director and staff. He waited 8 months to do so which seems like an eternity in today's world. Plus they apparently have no clue what to do with/about NIL--which let's be honest is true of many 'old school' programs.
Michigan doesn't have a lot of innovative moves in play wrt NIL but they are doing something at least. But Michigan has the advantage of being a blueblood program with tradition and a national reputation. Wisconsin has been remarkably successful since Barry Alvarez arrived for the '90 season but times have changed. And they have not--particularly Chryst.
Which is why he's gone. Leonhard gets a live 7 game trial to see if he's ready to be the permanent head coach, which seems likely. If not then they are in early position to move on and begin backchanneling towards other potential candidates.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:18 PM ^
I read the article this morning and was struck by Chryst's serious delay in hiring a new recruiting director and staff. He waited 8 months to do so which seems like an eternity in today's world.
Yeah but he came in under budget and as a manager, he gets to keep 50% of those savings.
October 6th, 2022 at 9:22 PM ^
As I opened my Blake Corum autographed card in the mail today I marveled at all the ways Michigan is doing NIL.
I subscribe to 2 collectives. I paid for packs of cards of the team. I have a tee shirt of the O line celebrating the JM award. I have a commemorative JJ card. I have NFTs of Andrel and Donovan. My email today is offering me an autograph from Morris and Okie celebrating their teamwork. Will Johnson has the deal with that Royal Oak restaurant. Cade has TB12 among others. 2 linemen have Lamborghini.
I dunno man. Seems like a lot is starting to happen for current players. I don’t think it’s a stretch for a recruit to learn about this from their player hosts on the recruiting trip even if the university isn’t offering them major cash to sign.
October 6th, 2022 at 7:53 PM ^
Well, the idea of hiring him on our staff after reading this is a very hard NO!
October 6th, 2022 at 8:13 PM ^
In six full non-COVID seasons he had four 10-win seasons and a 9-win season last year. He went 6-1 in bowl games, including 2-1 in NY6 games. I get the season didn't start out the way they wanted, but he still should've been allowed to finish the season and demand changes from him or else get fired. When USC/UCLA joins the B1G, they're going to be lucky to be the fifth best program in the conference and will be wishing for the good old days of Paul Chryst.
October 6th, 2022 at 9:02 PM ^
I think your last sentence is key, but to the opposite point. The conference is about to be (even more) flush with cash. As an AD, would you want to potentially waste a year on a "prove it" season with a coach who has never demonstrated a willingness to turn over his staff? Eat the transition cost now and hit the ground running with a clear vision as the conference transitions into its next iteration. In the long run, there's going to be a lot of jockeying for position among the low/mid tier conference teams to cement their spot in the upcoming super leagues that CFB is headed toward.
October 6th, 2022 at 9:40 PM ^
Just like Nebraska having the Bo Pelini curse, I think Wisconsin has sealed their fate.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:15 PM ^
Ah chryst, not this again.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:17 PM ^
This read like an AD friendly justification for the move. Their program, they can do what they want. But the reasoning felt forced to me. Maybe more exists behind the scenes that isn't being talked about out of respect, but the stated justifications in this article don't add up.
The use of Jimmy Rolder seems like a revisionist history moment. Nobody knew who he was until he blew up at the end of his senior year. Notice no mention is made of the actual date this visit happened, only the passing inference it was before he became a known recruit. And does anyone realistically think Wisconsin is getting Caleb Williams out of the portal last year? The fact that was used as any sort of justification is damn near malpractice. The author even qualified with he was reportedly interested in Wisconsin, didn't even bother to see of it was true but ran with it anyway.
They mention the drop-off in recruiting in one year, like that has never happened before to any program ever. Especially one that isn't in a recruiting hot bed. He gets all the blame for the drop off but none of the credit for changing the expectations in the first place with the 3 year period of nice class rankings. To me it seems like they were slow to adapt to NIL but were figuring it out. They had an adequate sized staff at the time of his firing.
The author also made the claim he had never fired an assistant but also acknowledged he had accepted the need to make changes in his staff after the 2020 season. Despite "not firing" anyone, there were miraculous openings so that he could make those changes. Then the changes themselves were insinuated to be questionable with the only reason given being their previous job title. Using that reasoning alone, Bellamy should have never been safeties coach, Newsome was a terrible choice for tight end coach, Jaybaugh is questionable wherever he goes, etc.
This year has been a challenge for them and you can make the case for being concerned about the program going forward. But this article shows that reasoning alone isn't viewed as enough to justify this firing and the Wisconsin AD is trying to scrape enough together to make it look legit. This situation reeks of an AD wanting to make his mark on the football program and looking for an excuse.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:29 PM ^
You seem to know an awful lot about the situation and the article. Are you inside the UW Ath Dept?
I kid, I kid...
October 7th, 2022 at 2:31 AM ^
I don't know shit. I've just grown to despise the constant spin we are force fed on a daily basis in every aspect of life. This article triggered my spin meter. We as Michigan fans know all about the Jimmy Rolder situation. Not really recruited by anyone as he played too many other sports to be a full time football camper. Didn't become wildly known in the recruiting world until his senior tape started to get out. Author tries to paint a picture of Chryst's incompetence recruiting him because nobody on staff talked to him on a visit. Problem is the details of the visit are extremely vague. We don't know when it was, just the implication it was before he blew up. Auther mentions it was with a high school teammate but doesn't say which one of them actually scheduled the visit. For all we know they were completely aware he was there but weren't recruiting him and their time was spent elsewhere. These details matter in this situation and their absence makes me suspicious of the article's motive. Plus, Wisconsin was the main competition for his signature when he did commit. Man, Chryst was really bad that he still almost got him in the end.
October 7th, 2022 at 11:15 AM ^
"Not really recruited by anyone"
According to 247, Rolder had offers from Michigan, Cincy, Florida, LSU, Ohio State, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Purdue, and Wisconsin.
Webb talked about it this morning—Rolder is the kind of kid that Alvarez and his staff built a relationship with before other programs got a whiff of his potential, and he made Wisconsin into a strong program with players like Rolder.
Chryst lost a key recruiting staffer, and instead of replacing him, he just portioned out his duties to existing coaches. That's a terrible staffing decision in today's college football. Rolder is just an example of interest to Michigan fans; it's likely there were other misses.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:50 PM ^
I don’t care who the recruit is. Having a recruit on campus, and not having any schedule set up to recruit him, is absolutely a failure on several levels.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:59 PM ^
Maybe they weren't actually recruiting him very hard?
October 6th, 2022 at 9:35 PM ^
re: Rolder showing up and nobody talks to him.
I ran into this personally when I took unofficials. Granted this was 20 years ago, not football, and all coaches involved have been fired. But I did call ahead and talk to coaches, and made it clear I was coming to check everything out. Then I would show up and the head coach would be too busy to talk to me and the assistants would kinda shrug, maybe watch me workout a little if we had the opportunity and pass me off to a current player who didn’t always have a lot of personality.
The punchline is once one Big Ten school offered, suddenly they were reaching out again to see my interest and if we could do an official. First school to offer, offered based on my film and watching me play live before I could even get to them to take an official.
While I took it personally at the time, looking back I realize those coaches were just disorganized and not very good at recruiting or really many aspects of running a program outside of making lineups and coaching games. It sounds like Chryst is one of those guys relative to football.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:22 PM ^
Thanks for the summary, I wish more people would do that. It sounds like Chryst was just motoring along on cruise control waiting for retirement. Well, he's got it now, in an embarrassing way.
I do hope Leonhard gets the program righted...
October 6th, 2022 at 8:38 PM ^
Yes, please embarrass me with $11 million dollars. I will even wear a onesie as I leave the building, or even ass-less leather chaps.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:40 PM ^
Chryst is Wisconsin Hoke with weaker recruiting
October 7th, 2022 at 11:27 AM ^
This actually isn't a bad comparison. Both good guys, had an opportunity to run a large P5 program and ultimately were good and some things, but not others. I can see Chryst going the Hoke route and coaching at say a G5 school and having success, much like Hoke.
October 7th, 2022 at 12:19 PM ^
Hoke didn't go 67-26 and 6-1 in Bowl games.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:40 PM ^
Right when they play OSU of course
October 7th, 2022 at 11:23 PM ^
Don't think it would have mattered. Might actually help them. Look at Nebraska since they have been defrosted.
October 6th, 2022 at 8:57 PM ^
I don't think think I could be tough enough to fire friends (and family).
So please don't hire me to be a coach.
October 6th, 2022 at 9:21 PM ^
Rule: do not hire friends or family unless you own the company and are accountable only to your CPA(s) and the IRS; and can afford to carry some light producers (if needed).
October 7th, 2022 at 1:39 PM ^
Except kids. Kids I can coach, especially younger ones, because then it's more about teaching.
October 6th, 2022 at 9:14 PM ^
Sounds bad. No wonder he only went 67-26.
October 6th, 2022 at 9:21 PM ^
"Jimmy Rolder visited for a game, and NOBODY even talked to him."
Understandable when I go to a party. But for a 4 star LB recruit? wow.
October 6th, 2022 at 10:14 PM ^
Jimmy Rolder visited for a game, and NOBODY even talked to him. Nobody even knew he was coming.
Well if no one knew he was coming... does that mean he didn't tell anybody on the staff he was visiting? If not, how were they supposed to know?
October 6th, 2022 at 11:54 PM ^
I wonder how much of this is Wiscy admin trying to get ahead of the narrative on this thing via this kind of article?
It's not like Chryst at 11 million cash is going to hold a press conference to refute. The admin throws the guy under the bus. Shocking.
October 7th, 2022 at 6:31 AM ^
Add another…he took a ton of state of Michigan kids(who are upperclassmen now) that MSU and Michigan didn’t even bother to want
October 7th, 2022 at 10:22 AM ^
Even though it is paywalled, it is fine to leave the link. Easier for members of The Athletic to go to the article than to search the site. Thanks for the information and summary.