Wisconsin made a bold move over the weekend when it decided to fire Paul Chryst despite him being largely successful throughout his run as head coach of the football team. The question now becomes who will be the replacement coach.
Badgers defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard is the interim coach, and the belief has been that Wisconsin wants to give its former safety a shot at winning the job. But if Leonhard fails to impress for whatever reason, there might be another coach of note with eyes on the job.
Pete Thamel said on ESPN’s “College GameDay” podcast episode that was released on Monday that NC State coach Dave Doeren would want the job.
“My hunch is Dave Doeren would crawl there. He has Midwest ties. There’s some risk with Leonhard, there aren’t a whole lot of certainties once you go past that,” Thamel said on the podcast, via 247Sports.
Doeren is a Shawnee, Kansas, native. He played college ball at Drake in Iowa, coached throughout the Midwest and he was an assistant at Wisconsin from 2006 to2010. Prior to NC State, he went 23-4 in two seasons at Northern Illinois. Doeren has gone 68-50 at NC State with three nine-win seasons.
The ceiling to win at Wisconsin is higher than it is at NC State, which has had only one double-digit win season in program history (in 2002 with Philip Rivers at quarterback).
If things don’t work out with Leonhard, Doeren would be a really strong hire if Wisconsin were able to land him.
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