"Coach Chryst is my guy, one of my best friends, so just losing him, not seeing him every day, going to talk to him whenever I want, lay on his couch, pick my feet up, chop it up with him.it hurts." "It's been emotional," said junior linebacker Nick Herbig. Game day is a different feeling for me."Īgree or disagree with the move to fire Chryst, McIntosh had shown Leonhard and the UW players the ugly business side of college football and there's no walking it back now.Ĭhryst had won 72 percent of his games, made three appearances in the Big Ten Championship Game, went 6-1 in bowl games, including two New Year's Six wins, and Chryst was still the victim of a volatile change given the downward trajectory of the program since 2020. "When I woke up this morning, it was a great feeling.
"You put in a lot of work, put in the time, you should have confidence when you step off that bus, that you have the right plan, have the right guys, you're gonna put them in position to have success. I've been a part of a lot of these, obviously not in this role. "There were a lot more nerves throughout the week than there were today," Leonhard told reporters following Saturday's 42-7 win over NU. Leonhard also has to be wondering, 'If McIntosh can do that Chryst, a Wisconsin native, former player, and former assistant coach, 'Who's to say they can't eventually do the same to me?'Īs has been the case throughout his career, Leonhard finds that game day can be therapeutic to turning off the outside noise. Leonhard endured seeing one of his mentors, the guy that hired him following a 10-year NFL career with no coaching experience, kicked to the curb despite winning 72 percent of his games, including a 6-1 mark in bowls. On the other, Chryst's firing after just five games into the 2022 season was the last way he wanted the job.
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Wisconsin's golden boy, a former walk-on turned into three-time All-American safety, had officially come full circle. His loyalty to the program, turning down countless other big-time opportunities, had paid off. On one hand, Leonhard landed his dream job. That doesn't even include what Leonhard must have been feeling emotionally as he described last Sunday as, 'A dream coming out of a nightmare.'
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It was not only Leonhard's job to pick up the pieces and carry the program forward for the rest of the 2022 season, but undo the habits of the last seven-plus seasons as secondary coach and defensive coordinator, figure out how to run said program, and manage an entire game week in the span of six days before Wisconsin (2-3, 1-2) traveled to Northwestern (1-5, 1-2), looking to snap a two-game losing skid. Thrust into his role as interim head coach, athletic director Chris McIntosh fired former head coach Paul Chryst last Sunday, shocking the college football world. To say Jim Leonhard had a lot on his plate this week would be an understatement.
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