BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — As an offensive coordinator,
Paul Chryst always wondered what it would be like to have someone with a defensive background and mindset in his meeting room to balance and complement the chorus with a fresh perspective on the X's and O's from the other side of the ball.
"Someone," said Wisconsin's head coach, "who looks at it a little bit differently."
Last spring, Chryst acted on the impulse by "flipping" his staff for one practice. The defensive coaches met with the offensive players. The offensive coaches met with the defensive players. Chryst felt it was a great way to teach and grow his team's overall football knowledge. Others agreed.
"It was really insightful," observed inside linebacker Jack Cichy, a senior-to-be. "We're trying to read what they're doing (on offense) and they're doing the same exact thing to us."
"We, as linebackers, have a general idea of what they're trying to do (on offense)," opined inside linebacker T.J. Edwards, UW's leading tackler in each of the last two years. "It just gave us a better understanding of what they're trying to accomplish."
Armed with those results, a piqued curiosity, a creative plan and a conviction for finding the best man available for the assignment, Chryst had no reservations about hiring Bob Bostad to coach the UW's inside 'backers even though all of Bostad's coaching experience has been on offense.
"We feel really comfortable and confident knowing who he is as a coach," Chryst said. "Certainly, we're talking about something different, a little outside of his box. But if you're a good coach and you know the game of football and how to teach, you will be successful. Bob is all of that."
In Chryst's own words, coaching is coaching.
"I always thought so much of coaching the players is, 'What kind of teacher are you? Can you communicate to them? Do your drills make sense?'" Chryst said. "If you can have guys see the same things through a different lens, it maybe helps you get a more accurate picture."
Based on their previous working relationship — six years together on Bret Bielema's staff at Wisconsin — Chryst was sold on Bostad making it work.
"His greatest strength as a coach is as a teacher being able to communicate and have a vision and to coach to that vision," Chryst said. "He's got a great ability to get players to see what they're working for; he's relentless in finding a way to get them to that level. There's a persistence to it."
There's also a firmness, a purposiveness that Bostad brings to the process.
"In some ways, many ways," Chryst said, "you can coach a toughness."
That might be tough love when appropriate.
"The biggest thing is seeing his commitment," UW defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard said of Bostad. "He loves Wisconsin. He's all about this place. He knows who we are and how we play on both sides of the ball. I'm going to learn a lot from him. He's going to bring a different perspective.
"There's definitely a transference (from offense to defense). The O-line is trying to get to those guys (linebackers on the second level). They know what causes them problems. That's a lot of what I'm looking for out of that position. We have veteran guys, we have great leaders in that meeting room.
"It's going to be an opportunity for them to learn a little bit differently. Some of the things that they may have thought gave offenses a problem, maybe it was not the case. It will be good to get a different set of eyes on it."
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Bostad's eyes have been fixed on Wisconsin game film the last couple of days.
"I love watching film," he said, sounding very much like Chryst. "I've been getting a feel for every player and kind of who they are, the plusses and minuses, stuff like that. I have to learn the defense and the fits and coverages and all those core things that are going to be consistent."
While he has never coached linebackers, Bostad was one himself; an all-conference, four-year starter on some good UW-Stevens Point teams. "Eons ago," he said, acknowledging it was nearly three decades ago that he got his undergraduate degree (1989) and embarked on a career in coaching.
At every stop over the past 27 seasons — 23 on the collegiate level and four years in the pros, two each with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Tennessee Titans — Bostad has been responsible for developing the offensive line and/or the tight ends; an extension of the O-line in most systems.
"Oh, there's going to be an adjustment for sure," said Bostad, who's nonetheless confident in making the transition to defense. "When I coached on the other side, it was always knowing what was going to happen before the ball was snapped. I don't think there will be any difference now."
That Bostad has always been such a stickler for detail was another selling point.
"The more I talked to people about good linebacker play, they talked about needing to stop the run and knowing how to beat pass protections," Chryst said. "Who knows those things better than someone who has spent their career coaching those things?"
Each of Wisconsin's last two defensive coordinators, Dave Aranda and Justin Wilcox, also coached the inside linebackers. Bostad will take over that position group and join forces with Leonhard (secondary), Tim Tibesar (outside linebackers) and Inoke Breckterfield (defensive line).
Leonhard, a 10-year NFL vet as a player, had never coached anywhere before Chryst stepped outside of the box — not unlike what he's doing with Bostad — and put him in charge of the DBs last season. And when Wilcox left for Cal, Chryst didn't hesitate to promote Leonhard to defensive coordinator.
"I worked with Tim and Nokes (Breckterfield) last year and I love their personalities and they're great coaches, and now Bob is the new piece and you don't have to change much," Leonhard said. "I'll get my coaching style, my style of play into the defense a little bit, it's going to be my own.
"At the same time, there's going to be a lot of carry-over in what we do."
Leonhard and Bostad occasionally crossed paths in the NFL. "I would run into him during pregame and talk to him and stuff like that," Bostad said. "I always knew that he wanted to come back here and it's huge when you've got a guy who knows what he wants to do. His resume speaks for itself."
Bostad has some other personal links and history with Chryst's staff.
In 2006, Bostad was a member of Bielema's first staff with the Badgers. He was a new hire along with John Settle, the current running backs coach. Chryst was one of two holdovers from Barry Alvarez's final staff. The other was Henry Mason, now the Director of Player Personnel and External Operations.
During the two seasons that Bostad mentored the tight ends for Bielema, a group that included a couple of NFL draft choices, Travis Beckum and Garrett Graham, he also had Mickey Turner, the current tight ends assistant, under his wing.
UW offensive coordinator and O-line coach Joe Rudolph later joined that staff. In fact, Rudolph took over the tight ends after Bostad switched to the offensive line to replace Bob Palcic. Small world. Crazy business. "You hit it on the head," said Bostad, chuckling. "It's a crazy business."
When Chryst took the Pitt job, Bostad was on board for the same reasons that brought him back to Madison for a second tour of duty. "The reason I went to Pittsburgh was to be with Paul and good people (Rudolph was among them) and to continue to do what we felt we were good at," he said.
The Badgers were good at getting the most out of their personnel by playing to their strengths. "That's the style of football that I really like," Bostad said. "That draws me to the game.
Bostad was Pitt's offensive coordinator for less than two months before accepting Greg Schiano's offer to tutor the offensive line in Tampa. In categorizing the abrupt move from the college turf to the pros, he said, "As you get along in your career, you have to make business decisions, too."
Bostad has no regrets, either. "It was a tremendous experience," he said of his four years in the NFL. "It teaches you that there's not always one way to do things. You have a range of guys from rookies all the way to 15-year veterans which you have to prepare differently. It taught me a lot."
Chryst noted that special teams coach Chris Haering will continue to be UW's primary in-state recruiter, a role that Bostad held under Bielema. He also revealed Bostad would recruit some in Michigan and Indiana. "He understands the type of players that have success here," Chryst added.
Bostad knows the formula. That's why he feels so good about working with Chryst again.
"Good chemistry makes for a good work environment," Bostad said. "Makes for good football."
Raised in Pardeeville, 35 miles north of Madison, Bostad used to attend Badgers games as a teenager with his dad and brothers. Bostad, like Chryst, is a coach's kid, the son of the late Bob Bostad Sr., who posted a 155-61-3 record during his 20-year Hall of Fame career at Pardeeville High School.
Less than two weeks after Bostad joined Bielema's staff — what he labeled as a "dream come true professionally" — his father died of a heart attack. He was 73.
Bostad Jr., was never pushed to get into the business. "My father told me, 'Do whatever you want to do. Just do it right,'" he said.
That's what he's doing now, all these years later, by reconnecting with Wisconsin.
"I still have those deep feelings for this place," Bostad said.
