BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
SAN DIEGO — Paul Chryst has studied bowl preparation from a host of locations and vantage points during his 27 years in the coaching business.
He did so as a graduate assistant at West Virginia in 1989, a tight ends coach at Oregon State in 2003 and '04, an offensive coordinator at Wisconsin from 2005 to '11 and as a head coach at Pittsburgh from 2012 to '14.
He has three-ring binders filled with notes about what worked and what didn't on the way to a 7-6 career record.
Many of those lessons are currently on display as Chryst gets his alma mater, Wisconsin, up to speed for its Holiday Bowl date with Southern California on Wednesday.
Two objectives stand out.
"You want players to enjoy the bowl experience because there's a reward component to it," Chryst said. "And then you're getting ready to play the game and you want to be playing your best."
Striking that balance requires a mix of hype, trust, aggressiveness, restraint and surprise all while maintaining a sense of routine. In Chryst's case, it helps to have a Hall of Fame sounding board.
A week after the Badgers (9-3) were tabbed to face USC (8-5) at Qualcomm Stadium — their first-ever berth in the Holiday Bowl — Chryst came here via charter flight for a site visit. Part of the ride was spent piecing together a plan of action. More than once he looked up and asked Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez for his input.
Alvarez coached the Badgers on a Hall of Fame level from 1990 to 2005. Embedded in his 119-74-4 career record is a 9-4 mark in bowl games that ranks among the best winning percentages (.692) in Football Bowl Subdivision history.
The latest victory came last January when Alvarez was serving as interim coach. Just under a month after Gary Andersen pulled up stakes for Oregon State, Alvarez ran the show and guided the Badgers to a 34-31 overtime triumph over Auburn in the Outback Bowl.
Alvarez is clearly proud of his postseason record, which includes a 6-3 mark in January bowls and a 3-1 record in the Rose Bowl.
"I didn't make any mistakes in bowls," he declared as he watched practice on Saturday.
Chryst coached alongside Alvarez during two of his bowl wins: a 38-31 overtime victory over Colorado in the 2002 and a 24-10 decision over Auburn in the 2005 Capital One Bowl.
Chryst noted that Alvarez finalized his game plan before leaving town; watched him conduct a live scrimmage at the outset of their arrival for the Alamo Bowl; saw that he gave his players a lot of time off early in the trips; and heard him stress to his charges that it was important to maximize the amenities that come with a bowl assignment.
"What I learned from him and others are templates and you have to fit it to your team this year and roll with that," Chryst said.
To that end, Chryst installed the game plan for USC before the Badgers boarded a 747 and flew here on Christmas Eve and conducted a padded workout Saturday that was intense enough to trigger a skirmish between offensive and defensive linemen.
Chryst indicated there wouldn't be heavy hitting practices here because he liked what he saw from the ones conducted in Madison.
"The guys were into it, and that was with finals and stuff," he said. "I think you want to try to mimic as much of a normal game week as you can."
Chryst said he didn't have curfews for the first two nights in San Diego, but "we'll start backing it down" as game day draws near.
"I trust this team," he said. "You have to."
Chryst said a top priority with his players is "making sure that when it's time to work, they're working, and when it's time to experience something (associated with the bowl), they're doing that."
After practice on Sunday the Badgers will take in SeaWorld. After practice on Monday they'll tour the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Alvarez said he stressed to Chryst the importance of having the players embrace the bowl-sponsored side trips.
"You want them to experience something," Alvarez said. "I always used to tell them, 'Don't do what I did.'"
During his playing days at Nebraska, Alvarez foolishly avoided the touristy events during bowls.
"I was a wise guy," he said, recalling a specific trip to the Orange Bowl in Miami. "They took us to nice places — the school paid for it — and I'm at the dog track with a bunch of knuckleheads from Pittsburgh. We're out of money in three days."
Alvarez doesn't want the current players to make the same mistake.
"Whatever we pay for, you go and experience it," he said. "SeaWorld? Go to SeaWorld. I don't care if you like it. Experience it."
Chryst, who was 1-1 in bowls as the coach at Pittsburgh, said his prep template includes a reminder to resist temptation regarding the play sheet. With so much time between the end of the season and the bowl, some coaches get inventive and expansive. Perhaps too much so.
"I think there's a danger of it getting bigger," he said. "You just have to keep it what you have for a normal game. There's a trap that if you've got time, you keep adding, but hopefully we've got enough."
A month and two days separate Wisconsin players and coaches from their regular-season finale — a 31-21 Big Ten Conference win over Minnesota — and their date with the Trojans. Alvarez said the idea of trying to re-generate momentum from that game is futile.
"The momentum of the season has nothing to do with this," he said. "I don't care if you won or lost that last game — won a championship or not — it's about getting them excited about playing Southern Cal and getting excited about the experience of being here.
"The momentum at the end doesn't make any difference. You have to make sure your seniors want to play and they're not worried about the (NFL). You've got to make sure the rest of the team's excited about being here. Make the game important to them and reward them at the same time."
Like Alvarez before him, Chryst wants his players to understand the importance of the bowl result.
"It's a one-game season," Chryst said.
Alvarez recounted a conversation with a rival coach before his first Rose Bowl in 1993. The coach talked about having a good first year — eight wins and a bowl berth — but all he heard during the offseason was about how he lost the bowl game.
"Ever since then I made the bowl important," Alvarez said. "I know what you're going to have to live with during the offseason."
