MGoGrendel

December 12th, 2014 at 7:37 AM ^

My cool story: I'm in a grocery store in the Atlanta 'burbs yesterday, standing behind a retirement age lady with a red Wisconsin jacket.  I make small talk about the coaching change (and tell her that we're getting Harbaugh!).  She says: "Alvarez is coaching the bowl game" and I responded "it's deja vu all over again!".

My guess it that Barry is a bit of a control freak and Chryst is agreeable to wearing the puppet strings.  I found this posted in the comments over at Badger Nation:

 

Joined: 01/21/2013

MGoPoints: 70282

ziggolfer

December 12th, 2014 at 7:38 PM ^

really tough for players to go through so many coaches over so few yrs. that said, chryst left the program in a better way than he found it. Can't criticize him for wanting to go back to his hometown

~that said, I am interested to see if Alvarez burned his pittburgh connections that helped chryst get the job in the first place

 

Joined: 01/08/2012

MGoPoints: 514

goblue16

December 12th, 2014 at 2:35 AM ^

It's not about his record which is not too bad considering the state of Pitt football. They hired him because he knows the system and he's coached most of these players before he was already considered for the job during the last coaching search. This is an A+ hire

Joined: 03/28/2010

MGoPoints: 17468

WolvinLA2

December 12th, 2014 at 11:57 AM ^

First of all, he has not coached most of these players before.  The only guys he will have coached before are the 5th year seniors who likely didn't play when he was there last because they were redshirting.  And I don't know why that's a good reason anyway.  

Why is his record not bad and what does it being Pitt football have to do with it?  Pitt is not a bad football program, and in his time there he lost to teams such as Akron (this year) and Youngstown St, both at home.  He went 6-6 all 3 seasons, so he showed absolutely no improvement.  And it's not like he had a murderer's row of a schedule.  A good test is:  If this guy didn't have previous ties to Wisconsin, would he still be a good hire? I can't imagine why.

In what world is this an A+ hire?  I would say it's incredibly underwhelming, but maybe I should expect that from Wisconsin now.

Joined: 11/13/2009

MGoPoints: 58191

alum96

December 12th, 2014 at 2:14 AM ^

Fun fact - Chryst was OC at Oregon State before Wisconsin.  How circular is all this.

Looked up offensive FEI for Pitt under his reign.  First 2 years uninspiring but they finally put it together this year as they ranked #11 in the country which is impressive for a mid tier ACC team.  Prior 2 years were 50 and 60; the year before he arrived it was 66.

S&P+ rank was 17 this year, also very good for that type of program.  Prior two were 62, and 50.  Up from 75 before he arrived.

Don't know if it was a senior laden offense or what the specific situation is but at least in year 3 he produced a good offense; first 2 years were middling improvements.

Joined: 04/28/2012

MGoPoints: 82551

Brodie

December 12th, 2014 at 5:59 AM ^

not just OC at Oregon State... he's basically a Mike Riley protege, having followed him from the San Antonio Riders to OSU to the Chargers and back to OSU again, where they had their most successful seasons together. Suddenly the Whatever Trophy has taken on a serious Bo/Woody dynamic

Joined: 11/19/2008

MGoPoints: 10713

Brodie

December 12th, 2014 at 6:07 AM ^

Pitt, like Syracuse, went from being a real power program to being poop in an exceptionally quick manor When your fans can still remember Heisman trophies and national titles and all that jazz, the only thing harder to sell then "we suck" is "we're perpetually mediocre".

Their mistake, though, was truly in firing Mike Haywood before due process eventually cleared him of the charges against him. That led to their one year of Todd Graham. I suspect that Chryst is simply a pretty crappy coach but that he will win 8-9 games a year in Madison for a while before the bottom falls out

Joined: 11/19/2008

MGoPoints: 10713