Tag: Paul Chryst

Two Badger 2021 targets commit to Penn State

Twin brothers Kalen and Kobe King announced earlier today that they are committing to the Penn State Nittany Lions after they both…

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Twin brothers Kalen and Kobe King announced earlier today that they are committing to the Penn State Nittany Lions after they both listed Wisconsin in their top-7 schools a week ago.

The Detroit natives both listed Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Arkansas and Penn State as five of their top-seven schools with Kobe including Iowa State and Minnesota and Kalen including Nebraska and Missouri as the final two.

Kalen is a four-star cornerback who ranks as the 24th-best cornerback recruit in the nation and Kobe is a three-star inside linebacker who ranks as the 20th-best linebacker prospect.

The brothers will now line up across from Head Coach Paul Chryst‘s unit when they arrive in State College, Pa. to join Head Coach James Franklin‘s program.

What a possible playoff expansion could mean for the Badgers

WatchStadium.com reporter Brett McMurphy reported yesterday that in a recent Stadium survey, 88 percent of FBS athletic directors are…

WatchStadium.com reporter Brett McMurphy reported yesterday that in a recent Stadium survey 88 percent of FBS athletic directors are in favor of an expanded College Football Playoff when the current deal expires in five years.

Of the 130 athletic directors in the FBS, 112 of them responded to the survey. The numbers broken down show 72 percent of the respondents want the playoff expanded to eight teams, 5 percent want six teams, 8 percent want 16 teams and 3 percent want a different expansion. Broken down further, 83 percent of Power Five athletic directors are in favor of an expansion compared to 91 percent of non-Power Five athletic directors.

This playoff expansion would obviously come with out-of-conference schedule complications and an overall schedule change in terms of when the playoff games need to be played.

Logistics aside, here’s how the possible expansion would affect the Wisconsin Badgers.

The College Football Playoff was introduced in 2014-15 with Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State as the first participants.

Since its inception the Badgers obviously haven’t made the cut for the four-team playoff. They have over the last four years, however, finished the season with a top-10 ranking twice and have been ranked within the top-eight at some point during each season.

After McMurphy’s report, Stadium tweeted what the playoff would have looked like during the last four years had it included eight teams.

As you can see the Badgers would have been the No. 6 seed in the playoff in 2017 with their 12-1 record at the time and would have narrowly missed the cut in both 2016 and 2019.

What does this all mean?

Given the Badgers recent dominance of the Big Ten West division and lack of real challenges in their out-of-conference schedule (though that may change with their matchups in the coming years against Notre Dame and Alabama), this change in the number of playoff teams would almost ensure the Badgers’ place in the running for the playoff year in and year out.

Specifically, if head coach Paul Chryst’s team builds upon the success they’ve achieved in recent years and they continue to succeed against schools including Iowa and Minnesota, this change would be a great one for the Badgers as they continue to search for the school’s first national championship.

Wisconsin listed inside the top-10 in Sports Illustrated’s “Defensive Line U” rankings

Sports Illustrated’s newest edition of their “Position U” series, a series ranking college football programs in terms of the success of their NFL outputs at each positional group, focuses on the defensive line and has the Badgers at No. 6. These …

Sports Illustrated’s newest edition of their “Position U” series, a series ranking college football programs in terms of the success of their NFL outputs at each positional group, focuses on the defensive line and has the Badgers at No. 6.

These rankings are based on a combination of draft position, games started in the NFL and awards received for players currently playing at the next level.

Leading the pack, obviously, are the college football blue blood programs of Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and Ohio State. Somewhat surprising, though, is the Badgers’ ranking at No. 6, as the program doesn’t bring in recruits close to the level of their blue blood counterparts.

Notable defensive linemen to come through Madison, Wis. and currently play in the NFL include J.J. Watt, Beau Allen and Olive Sagapolu. Watt obviously being the most notable on the list.

Other top-10 finishes for the Badgers in the “Position U” rankings, with the defensive back rankings yet to be released, include No. 8 at running back, No. 2 at offensive line and No. 9 at tight end.

 

 

 

Badgers add a wide receiver to their 2020 class

Wide receiver Haakon Anderson of Verona, Wis. announced his commitment to the University of Wisconsin earlier today per his Twitter page. Feeling right at Home…Committed #BadgerBoiz20 pic.twitter.com/a1TcAUPbkt – Haakon Anderson (@Haakon_Anderson) …

Wide receiver Haakon Anderson of Verona, Wis. announced his commitment to the University of Wisconsin earlier today per his Twitter page.

The Verona Area High School product was a two-time All-Region and three-time All-Conference player and had interest from schools including Duke, North Dakota State, North Dakota, Drake and Eastern Kentucky.

Anderson joins a stellar class of recruits brought in this year by Head Coach Paul Chryst, a class headlined by names including tackle Jack Nelson, linebacker Nick Herbig and wide receiver Chimere Dike. 

Chryst’s 2020 recruiting class is currently ranked 25th in the nation and fifth in the Big Ten by 24/7 Sports.

Wisconsin in the top-7 for 2021 four-star cornerback Kalen King. Is he a package deal with his brother Kobe?

Earlier this afternoon on Twitter, four-star cornerback Kalen King listed his top seven schools, and Wisconsin made the cut. The Detroit, Michigan native also said that he would be making a final decision on April 10th regarding his commitment. 7…. …

Earlier this afternoon on Twitter, four-star cornerback Kalen King listed his top seven schools, and Wisconsin made the cut. The Detroit, Michigan native also said that he would be making a final decision on April 10th regarding his commitment.

 

Today on the Locked On Badgers podcast, I was joined by 247/CBS Sports Wisconsin insider Evan Flood, and he shared some interesting information regarding the four-star product. According to Flood, the Badgers have also been recruiting Kobe King (yes, an ironic name), the twin brother of Kalen, who is a three-star inside linebacker. Earlier this morning on the podcast, Flood suggested that Badger fans could have hope at landing both of the King brothers because they have made it a point to value both, while other Big Ten schools have gone after Kalen with more aggressiveness. We will see if the strategy pays off on April 10th. Check out today’s podcast where we breakdown the King brothers: Locked On Badgers Podcast: Wisconsin recruiting update with 247Sports Badger insider Evan Flood

Wisconsin to Push Back Start Date of Spring Football

Paul Chryst on Monday announced that he was going to push back the start date of spring football.

Wisconsin spring football was officially supposed to start on March 10th but it was announced on Monday that Paul Chryst has elected to push back the start of spring football.

Wisconsin will be on spring break next week and with winter conditioning recently wrapped up Chryst wanted to give his team two weeks to recover in order to maximize the 15 spring practices. The new tentative start date for spring football is March 22nd.

It was also learned on Monday that the Badgers will be without eight players for the entire spring due to injuries. They are nose tackle Keeanu Benton (core), long snapper Josh Bernhagen (left leg), safety Eric Burrell (left arm), wide receiver Jack Dunn (left leg), offensive lineman Kayden Lyles (right and left leg), safety Scott Nelson (left leg), running back Brady Schipper (right and left arm), and nose tackle Bryson Williams (left leg).

It shouldn’t be surprising that Nelson and Williams aren’t available this spring considering both were lost at some point during last season because of an injury. Nelson only played in one game last year and Williams appeared in six games.

Not having Lyles available during spring football will hurt as he was expected to fight for a starting spot on the interior of the offensive line. Offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Joe Rudolph wasn’t going to name a starting five by the end of spring football but Lyles needed the reps in order to set himself up to have a productive fall camp and to allow Rudolph his first chance of trying out different offensive line combinations.

Wisconsin will officially open the season against Indiana on Friday, September 4th at Camp Randall Stadium.

 

The Athletic’s Top 25 CFB Coaches Throws Love to Brian Kelly

Win a huge game or heck, just go a year without getting blown out against a marquee opponent.

I’ve been more of a supporter of Brian Kelly than many on the internet. I know, shocking that that Twitter or any other social media outlet goes negative.

But when you compare Kelly’s run to where things were just a decade ago it’s worthy of praise while also being aware there is still room for improvement.

Win a huge game or heck, just go a year without getting blown out against a marquee opponent.

Bruce Feldman of The Athletic released his 25 best coaches in college football Thursday morning and Brian Kelly checked in at number eight. Here’s what Feldman said about Kelly:

The 58-year-old has had a good long run at a place that often burns guys out after a few years. The Irish are 33-6 in his last three seasons. His teams have gotten blown out a bunch of times on big stages — Michigan beat Notre Dame by 31 last season, Clemson hammered them by 27 the year before and Miami crushed them by 33 the year before that — but overall he’s proven to be one of the best coaches in college football.

What does it mean?

Nothing but it is noteworthy when you see the likes of Jim Harbaugh and Paul Chryst 10 spots behind him.

What’s more important or meaningful to me is closing the gap to the truly elite. An uptick in recruiting would help that as would winning one of these marquee matchups instead of just playing a team like Georgia close.

Paul Chryst is the best argument Mel Tucker can make at MSU

Mel Tucker through the lens of Paul Chryst

Yes, I am on record as saying the Mel Tucker hire by Michigan State is not an especially impressive one. Yet, I have acknowledged as well that head coaching hires often defy the conventional wisdom or the majority reaction.

Ed Orgeron has been a home run. Tom Herman has fallen far short of expectations. Jim Harbaugh hasn’t been a total bust, but he has been curb-stomped by Ohio State, not merely outclassed. It seems like an impossibility that Harbaugh will win a division title at Michigan in the next two years. (Maybe in 2022, Ryan Day’s recruits might not hit the sweet spot, but Michigan isn’t beating OSU in Columbus this upcoming November if the Buckeyes are healthy at the most important positions.)

I and anyone else who evaluates coaching hires must allow for the possibility of being wrong. If I am wrong on Mel Tucker at Michigan State — if Tucker surpasses my expectations and becomes a worthy successor to Mark Dantonio — Tucker will author a surprising story of achievement and vindication.

If there is a coach in the Big Ten who offers at least some evidence — a tangible, living example — that this kind of hire can work, it is none other than the head coach of the Wisconsin Badgers. Yes, I am referring to Paul Chryst.

Ryan Day is a unique example among current Big Ten coaches, inheriting a completely loaded roster entrusted to him by Urban Meyer. That is a conspicuously rare coaching situation not easily comparable to anything else we see in the United States, let alone the Big Ten.

Among the other prominent — and generally successful (to varying degrees) — head coaches in the Big Ten, most of them showed they could win as head coaches elsewhere.

James Franklin at Vanderbilt before coming to Penn State.

Jim Harbaugh at Stanford (not to mention the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers).

P.J. Fleck at Western Michigan.

Jeff Brohm at Western Kentucky.

Kirk Ferentz doesn’t fit this dynamic at Iowa… and Paul Chryst doesn’t fit this dynamic at Wisconsin. Ferentz, though, hadn’t been a head coach in Division I (FBS) football when he took the Iowa job. Chryst had… and it didn’t work out for him.

Chryst was consistent at Pittsburgh… but not in an impressive way. Chryst’s Panthers went 6-6 in all three regular seasons. He coached two of those three bowl games, but not the third, having been hired to coach Wisconsin by Barry Alvarez. (Joe Rudolph coached that bowl for Pitt at the end of the 2014 season, interestingly enough.) Chryst’s record in three seasons at Pittsburgh: 19-19. It was hardly, on paper, the kind of resume which lent itself to an upward move on the coaching ladder.

Yet, Alvarez knew Chryst and trusted him. Chryst was familiar with the Wisconsin Way. It has worked out quite well. Alvarez looked past a head coach’s unimpressive resume as a head coach, and focused instead on the many years Chryst had spent in the salt mines of coaching in other roles and capacities. That accumulated experience sold Alvarez, and it turns out that Alvarez’s instincts were entirely correct.

That is fundamentally what Michigan State is banking on with Mel Tucker. He coached a defense at Georgia to the national title game, and it came within an eyelash of beating Nick Saban’s Alabama team for all the marbles. Tucker has worked on the coaching staffs of Nick Saban and Jim Tressel. He coached as an assistant for over 20 years before getting his chance to be a head coach at Colorado. Michigan State isn’t basing its decision on one year in Boulder in 2019, but on two decades of expertise.

Chryst had over two decades of (assistant) coaching experience when Alvarez picked him as the successor to Gary Andersen.

Wisconsin hopes Mel Tucker doesn’t work out at Michigan State… at least not when the Spartans play the Badgers. Yet, if Tucker does refute me and anyone else who is not impressed by this hire, he will follow in the footsteps of Paul Chryst and Wisconsin.

Did I ever tell you sports were endlessly fascinating?

Super Bowl LIV sent a loud message to Wisconsin and Paul Chryst

Super Bowl LIV and the Badgers

If you have followed the past few months of Badgers Wire analysis of Wisconsin football, you know that Super Bowl LIV conveyed a very important message to Paul Chryst and the program at large.

We have discussed all the merits of UW football — the consistency, the dependability, the steadiness, the toughness, the time-tested approach cultivated and sustained by Barry Alvarez for decades. The coaches change, but Wisconsin keeps winning. The Badgers continue to be the best of the Big Ten West. They continue to play in important January bowl games. The program is in a good place. It has remained in a good place for quite some time. The program is doing well.

Yet, if Wisconsin ever does want to make the jump from very good to great — from the upper reaches of college football’s second tier to the very top tier in the sport — we know what has to happen: The Badgers have to be able to throw, and hit, the deep ball with regularity. It is the one true gap (or absence, or deficiency, whichever word you prefer) in the larger identity and profile of Wisconsin football in this golden era for the program, which is now almost 30 years old, dating back to the 1994 Rose Bowl win over UCLA, which got the party started.

This is why the use of Jack Coan and Graham Mertz in 2020 is such an interesting and important point of focus. We wrote about this point when explaining how Steve Spurrier used to juggle quarterbacks at Florida. We also wrote on a broader level about Wisconsin needing to have a Plan B when Plan A wasn’t entirely sufficient, chiefly against opponents such as Ohio State. Wisconsin could not hit the deep ball in second halves against the Buckeyes. The UW offense bogged down and wasn’t able to rescue itself with quick strikes against Ohio State.

How fitting it was, then, that in Super Bowl LIV, the Kansas City Chiefs — stymied by Ohio State’s Nick Bosa and the rest of the San Francisco 49ers — broke free from Bosa’s physical prowess by hitting the long pass. The Chiefs’ ability to finally hit deep balls ignited their fourth-quarter surge and led them to victory.

The 49ers had the most physically imposing team in the NFL this season. Green Bay Packer fans don’t need an explanation of that point. Much like the Nick Saban Alabama teams of the early 2010s, the 49ers were the team opponents simply couldn’t beat with smashmouth ball. The 49ers were the best embodiment of it, so opponents would not win by playing the same style. This is why Gus Malzahn of Auburn has had so much success against Saban: He hasn’t tried to beat Saban at his own game. One could say the same for Hugh Freeze when he coached at Ole Miss and beat Saban multiple times. They didn’t try to beat an opponent at that opponent’s foremost point of strength. They knew they had to use speed to counter Alabama’s brute strength. They knew they had to throw downfield to change the equation.

Yes, the Badgers do not have a Patrick Mahomes on their team. They once had Russell Wilson, but Russell Wilsons don’t grow on trees. To be sure, UW doesn’t have the superstar QB who makes it a lot easier to throw down the field. Nevertheless, against Nick Bosa of Ohio State and the rest of a fire-breathing defense, the Kansas City Chiefs changed the equation by hitting long passes.

Super Bowl LIV reminded Paul Chryst that if he really wants to beat Ohio State and take the next step as a program, completing deep passes has to be part of the picture.

The Badgers need to dig the long ball.

Matt LaFleur and the Packers made Paul Chryst look smart

Matt LaFleur vindicated Paul Chryst

Why talk about the Green Bay Packers losing to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game on a site called Badgers Wire? Why remind Wisconsin sports fans of a depressing moment? To educate, of course.

Keep in mind that we kept the Packers off this site on Monday. We did this so that everyone could step away from the gloom for a day and cleanse themselves of the misery of waking up in the morning after another NFC Championship Game loss.

Now that we have had a day to vent/digest/absorb/accept, and do all the other things sports fans genuinely need to do after a defeat in a big game, we can more calmly confront what this game taught us about the Wisconsin Badgers, chiefly head coach Paul Chryst: He got better at his job in 2019 in one specific way. He went for it a lot more on fourth downs.

We know that Chryst going for it more on fourth downs was one of the more pleasant and exciting aspects of the 2019 season. It showed a willingness to embrace football analytics, but there’s more to it than that. I embraced going for it on fourth down before analytics became a thing.

What Chryst showed beyond his embrace of analytics was a simple willingness to trust his program’s philosophy, cultivated by Barry Alvarez.

When I say that I embraced going for it on fourth down before analytics became more widely accepted, I am trying to convey a point which goes beyond analytics. That point is as follows: Going for it on fourth down is valuable not just because of what the analytics say. It is important because it expresses trust in players.

When coaches trust players to perform, players generally respond to that kind of coaching. A good coaching decision isn’t just tactical or situational; it is meant to show players, “Hey, we practice these plays all the time. We live for these situations as a football team. If you’re coached properly, you will execute when you need to.” It is a message which applies to a specific situation yet extends to the broader coach-player relationship and the year-long process of teaching players how to play.

You go for it on fourth and one not just to keep the ball away from a good opposing offense, or to take more time off the clock, but to tell your players you trust them to apply the teaching and the guidance you give them in practice and in film study. Sending this message of trust means as much in the realm of motivation as a fiery speech in the locker room before kickoff. Coaches can give all the rousing locker-room speeches they want, but if they chicken out on fourth and one, those fierce messages don’t mean squat.

With all this in mind, let’s now realize why — and how — Matt LaFleur of the Green Bay Packers vindicated Paul Chryst’s 2019 movement toward more aggression on fourth downs.

I won’t spend a lot of time on this next point, but I have to at least mention the game, painful thought it is for Wisconsin sports fans: In the January 2015 NFC Championship Game in Seattle, Mike McCarthy kicked a bunch of field goals inside the Seattle 10-yard line. He wimped out on fourth down and short. Yes, had the Packers not bobbled an onside kick, they would have won… but if they had scored touchdowns and not field goals, the game would have been completely out of the Seahawks’ reach by that point. It wasn’t out of reach, and you know how that game ended.

We all should have expected a Packer coach to realize, in a new NFC Championship Game, the absolute NECESSITY of going for it on fourth down, ESPECIALLY on the road, and even more especially against a team which had already crushed the Packers in the regular season.

Anyone with half a brain knew that if the Packers were going to beat the 49ers on Sunday, they would need to be very aggressive on fourth down. They would need to keep that nasty Niner running game off the field. They would need to play their best game of the season BY FAR.

Matt LaFleur punted on fourth and one at midfield in the first quarter.

For so long in both college and pro football, coaches have wimped out on fourth down because of the weak rationalization that if they fail, their team is in a really bad position. Punting enables a coach to say, “I played field position. I didn’t put our team and our defense at risk.” It has been a safe “percentage” answer for decades.

The other side of the coin has always been that punting on fourth and one fails to trust elite players to get a yard in a key situation. Punting gives up a possession. Punting enables the other team to get the ball and dictate how the game is played. All these concepts — and the debates surrounding them — can be very abstract, like a conversation in a philosophy or a logic class. It’s all on paper, in theory, written on a board. It might not seem to matter.

Then you apply it to a live game, and you instantly see why — and how — the logic of punting or kicking a 19-yard field goal simply doesn’t hold up against the logic of going for a first down or touchdown on fourth down.

The Packers, of ALL teams in the NFL, should have known after their 2015 experience in Seattle that wimping out on fourth down was NOT the way to play it in Santa Clara, California. Matt LaFleur ignored recent history, and paid the price.

Paul Chryst probably would have coached the Packers better than LaFleur did on Sunday. I have absolutely zero doubt about that statement. Do you?

One coach actually would have gone for it on fourth down in the first quarter… and that coach is clearly not Matt LaFleur.