Sunday night Chris McIntosh fired Paul Chryst. Wisconsin is 2-3 with a blowout loss to Ohio State. The straw that broke the camels back was Bret Beilma beating Wisconsin at home. Wisconsin has not lost to Illinois, that badly in years. The Badgers have not looked good all year. Since 2019 Wisconsin has a losing record against ranked opponents. Paul Chryst is the third winiest coach in program history, but has regressed since Covid 19 began.
Jim Leonard is now the interim head coach. A lot of fans and Alumni want Jim to be the next permanent head coach. He is being talked about as the next great, young coach. Nebraska and other schools are going to interview him for jobs next year. I think that is one of the reasons Paul was fired durning the season. Jim has a seven game tryout. If he does well, he will get the job, otherwise Wisconsin will look at other places. The top two names that have been appearing are Dave Aranda and Lance Leipold. Aranda was Wisconsin’s defensive coordinator, under Gary Anderson and Paul Chryst, for a year. Lance Leiplod was a graduate assistant under Barry Alvarez and won multiple national championships at UW- Whitewater.
Wisconsin takes on Northwestern on Saturday. We will be able to see what Jim is like as a head coach. The Badgers still have all their goals in front of them. They are 0-2 in the Big Ten, but all the rest of the West are 1-1.