Lucas: With coaching changes, Chryst aims to play to strengths of his staff
February 12, 2021 | Football
Departures of longtime assistants and desire to build a balanced staff drive adjustments for 2021
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BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Nearly every off-field decision that Paul Chryst has made as Wisconsin's head coach has been predicated on identifying the answers to some fundamental questions.
Is it good for the program? Is it good for the players?
These guardrails have been the backdrop to Chryst reshuffling his staff in response to the departures of defensive line coach Inoke Breckterfield to Vanderbilt and quarterbacks coach Jon Budmayr to Colorado State. As the dominoes began to fall, it was up to Chryst to piece it all together.
At the heart of the recent changes and reassignments, Chryst has returned to coaching the quarterbacks and calling the plays on gamedays.
Ross Kolodziej has shifted from the weight room to the D-line and Shaun Snee has been promoted to replace Kolodziej as the director of strength and conditioning.
Hank Poteat has been hired to coach the cornerbacks — balancing the coaches on both sides of the ball — and allowing defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard to focus on the overall scheme and safeties.
Associate head coach and O-line coach Joe Rudolph has been named the run game coordinator and outside linebackers coach Bobby April has been tabbed as the run game coordinator on defense.
A general assumption is that all these moves will lead to fresh ideas.
"You hope so, and I'm confident that it will," Chryst said. "Adding one more to the defensive staff will help in a number of different ways. And, in many ways, by me going back and coaching the quarterbacks and being more involved offensively, it can free up more people."
Chryst, 55, has always been known as a quarterback whisperer. It was a position that he played in high school and at Wisconsin. At most of his coaching stops, he has doubled up as an offensive coordinator and QB coach, dating to one of his earliest jobs at UW-Platteville in 1993.
He also served in that dual role at Illinois State, Saskatchewan (CFL), Oregon State and with the Badgers, from 2005 through 2011, before taking over his own program at Pittsburgh. Three years later, upon his return to Wisconsin as the head coach, he still continued to coach the quarterbacks.
In 2018, Chryst gave up that assignment to Budmayr, a former UW quarterback and graduate assistant. Since then, Budmayr has been the full-time QB coach. Like any assistant, he was working towards earning an opportunity someday to coordinate his own offense and call his own plays.
On Feb. 4, Colorado State officially hired Budmayr as its offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Agreeing the timing was right for Budmayr, Chryst noted, "It's a great chance for him to take a lot of what he has learned and worked on and apply it in a little different way and broader scope."
Chryst now had to fill an opening on his staff.
"There were a lot of things that went into that," he said. "I've been thinking about it really for about a year now. How do you best balance out and use your staff and allocate your resources? You want to make sure you're playing to the strengths of everyone."
Chryst had conversations about potential scenarios and options with Rudolph.
Posed Chryst, "How can we do all we can to try and make this place as good as it can be?"
The answer was reflected in the changes.
"We both came to the conclusion, both individually and collectively," Chryst said, "for Rudy to do the best job with the offensive line, it was going to take a little bit more time and energy and a little bit more of — for lack of a better term — a narrow focus."
Chryst cited the many demands of that position group, from the run game to protections.
At the same time, he acknowledged, "I always felt one area where we were a little bit stretched was defensively, and that really led to, 'How do you best get to that end result?' There were a lot of different moving pieces before getting to what I think is the best use of everyone's abilities."
Chryst determined that it was in the best interests of the program to balance out the numbers on his staff by adding a defensive assistant and splitting the secondary between Leonhard and Poteat. In doing so, he would resume tutoring the quarterbacks.
The math added up:
Offense (5): Chryst, Rudolph, John Settle, Mickey Turner, Alvis Whitted.
Defense (5): Leonhard, Poteat, Kolodziej, April and Bob Bostad.
Special teams (1): Chris Haering.
"Personally, I was afraid to spread myself too thin, but there was a strong desire on my part to be more involved in the day-to-day coaching of it," explained Chryst. "And a big part of that was I have a lot of trust and confidence in not just Jimmy, but Jimmy and our defensive staff.
"They provide me the ability to focus a little bit more on one side (offense). Especially with the way we've got it structured, too, with special teams and Chris being in charge of those … I felt I could do a lot in bringing it all together, more so than any other time since coming back."
As far as doubling up as head coach and quarterbacks coach, he said, "It's not much different than when I've been coordinating the offense (and coaching the QBs). You lean so much on the O-line coach and really all of your assistants. Certainly, putting the plan together, it takes everyone.
"But at some point, you've got to make the final decisions and kind of have the big vision of what you want to do and how you want to go about it and how it best fits. Not just for your players on offense — how it fits your team. I've always approached it that way. This year wouldn't be any different.
"I'm always conscious that you don't want anything in the program to suffer because you were spending too much time on another part of it. And yet I feel confident with everything, and all the people that we have covering it."
Poteat had been a graduate assistant under Chryst at Pittsburgh. In 2015, he also interviewed with Chryst and then-defensive coordinator Dave Aranda for the defensive backs position. The Badgers hired Daronte Jones, who left the following season for the NFL. Leonhard replaced him with the DBs.
"I had the opportunity to be with Hank (at Pitt) and I was impressed then, and kind of followed him," Chryst said. "I then talked to Jim about what I was thinking, and I wanted him to talk with Hank and get a sense of it. They're going to be working closely and I wanted him to feel good about it.
"Once I knew Jim spent quite a bit of time with him and he said that he felt comfortable with it, once again, you go back to, 'Can he help our program?'"
In splitting the secondary workload between Leonhard (a former NFL safety) and Poteat (a former NFL cornerback), Chryst said, "In many ways you could say it's all one defensive backfield, but the specific responsibilities and coaching points are very different for a corner opposed to a safety.
"In the middle of that is what you do with your nickel and substitution packages. Just based on sheer numbers, it's a large group. As you break up the day-to-day when watching film, in your meetings and corrections, we've got a chance to narrow the focus a little bit more for those positions.
"It's also one more full-time coach on the defensive side of the ball. Since we've been here, Jimmy, and before him Justin (Wilcox) and Dave (Aranda), have done tremendous jobs making it work. But I thought we could help them more so now."
In 2015, Aranda coached the inside linebackers along with coordinating the defense. In 2016, Wilcox replaced Aranda (who left for LSU) as the DC and also coached the inside linebackers. In 2017, Leonhard took over for Wilcox (who left for Cal) as the defensive coordinator and secondary coach.
Recently, the Green Bay Packers had shown interest in Leonhard. Chryst was not surprised.
"It's not a secret what he has done and how he has done it is worthy of attention," Chryst said. "He's not a secret. I've felt this for a long time, in a real positive way, he's unique in his approach and that's what leads to much of the success.
"He has prepared in many ways. Jimmy knows the NFL and he knows college football. And, most importantly, he knows what's best for him and his family. He's always been open-minded in gathering information and talking and listening."
Chryst felt the same about Breckterfield, who accompanied him to Wisconsin from Pitt.
"Certainly, I appreciate the time that I was able to work with him — to be with Nokes and his family," Chryst said. "It's pretty cool all the different job opportunities that he's had, and they've all been from people that he was worked with. That's a compliment to him."
What sold Chryst on Kolodziej as Breckterfield's replacement? Especially since Kolodziej had no previous experience as a position coach.
"I have a lot of respect and confidence in Ross as a coach; I trust him immensely," Chryst said. "Whoever is leading your strength program has a big responsibility. One of the strengths of Ross is that he's a really good coach. And I do subscribe to the belief that if you can coach, you can coach.
"I believed that with Bob Bostad. I was with him as an offensive line coach. But he's a really good coach and he could adjust and be a really good coach at another position (inside linebackers). Same thing with Ross. He's a good teacher. He's obviously smart and passionate.
"Really, it's what drives every move, 'Is it good for our program? And our players?'"
But moving Kolodziej from the weight room to the D-line meeting room entailed more.
"You don't want to rob Peter to pay Paul," said Chryst, no pun intended. "You make that move (with Kolodziej) and it's going to impact what is happening in strength and conditioning. Yet, I felt really confident, not only with Ross, but with the guys that we have in the weight room as a complete staff.
"Certainly, when Ross switched to the defensive line, I felt we had in Shaun somebody who was really capable and ready. And it was not just Shaun. It was John Graves and Kyle Costigan and Ty Taylor. It was the group. I felt we had some good things going on there.
"We weren't making a change because of something that we needed to change. But in talking with him (Snee), I felt confident. And I thought they had the right balance, led by Shaun, to put their own stamp on it without sacrificing or compromising the core principles or the core beliefs."
In 2018, April joined Chryst's staff to replace Tim Tibesar, who held the titles of outside linebacker coach and run game coordinator on defense. April now has those dual roles.
"I've felt so fortunate to be with Bobby — I get energy watching him coach and teach," Chryst said. "I know Jimmy has great trust and confidence in him. And this is an opportunity now to maybe kind of define much of what he is, and what he has been doing."
In the aftermath of these changes, Chryst has now set his sights on having a spring practice.
If it can be conducted safely.
"My expectation right now," he said Thursday, "is that I think it's important to do everything we can to have a full — not just spring practice — but winter workouts (which have already commenced). We lived it last year when you don't have those times to develop individually and develop as a team.
"It just reinforces the value of it (spring ball). So, we've just got to do everything within our power to make the most of it and get out of it all that we can, because it's a tremendous opportunity for us to be our best."
