Meet Paul Chryst, the Wisconsin Badgers' New Head Coach

Wisconsin's unexpected football vacancy was among the most shocking stories of the college football coaching carousel, but how the Badgers filled that opening was far less surprising.

The school quickly hired one of its own, officially introducing Paul Chryst as head coach Wednesday.

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Welcome Paul Chryst, the 30th head coach in #Badgers football history pic.twitter.com/c9QUa53fqV

— Badger Football (@BadgerFootball) December 18, 2014"

The former Wisconsin player and assistant comes to Madison after spending three seasons in charge of Pittsburgh, where he went 19-19 but led the Panthers to a bowl game each year. He replaces Gary Andersen, who left Dec. 11 to take the Oregon State job.

Here are some more things you should know about the new man in charge at Camp Randall Stadium.

He's as Wisconsin as It Comes

The 49-year-old Chryst has roots in Madison that not only date back to his birth but also include his playing and coaching career.

Chryst lived not far from the Wisconsin campus for 13 years before moving away when his father, George, became coach of Division III Wisconsin-Platteville. He returned to Madison to play for the Badgers, seeing time at quarterback, tight end and as a kick returner from 1986-88.

He then returned in 2002 for the first of two stints on Wisconsin's coaching staff. The second, from 2005-2011, was as the Badgers' offensive coordinator under both Barry Alvarez and Bret Bielema—a gig that helped him land the Pittsburgh job.

Stability After Turmoil

Chryst's three years at Pittsburgh weren't particularly flashy—he went 6-6 in the regular season each time—but after the chaos the program experienced from late 2010 until his arrival in December 2011, his tenure was far better than expected.

He was technically the sixth coach (including interim ones) for the Panthers in just over a year when hired, coming in when Todd Graham left after less than one season to go to Arizona State. Graham came to the school in January 2011, days after interim coach Phil Bennett led Pitt to a bowl victory, but then bolted in December 2011, leaving assistant Keith Patterson as interim coach in the Panthers' bowl game.

Dave Wannstedt coached Pitt from 2005-2010, resigning in December 2010 and handing the team over to Bennett in the interim. The school hired Miami (Ohio) coach Mike Haywood as Wannstedt's replacement but fired him just weeks later after he was arrested on domestic-violence charges on New Year's Eve.

Chryst's time at Pitt involved overseeing the program's move from the Big East to the ACC, where his team finished sixth in the Coastal Division in 2013 but tied for third this year. The Panthers won their final two games this season to become bowl-eligible and earn a berth in the Armed Forces Bowl against Houston on Jan. 2.

"He's changing the program around for the best, and I'm with Paul Chryst 100 percent," former Panthers star Aaron Donald, now a rookie with the St. Louis Rams, told Pittsburgh radio's Starkey and Mueller Show on Nov. 27.

A Circuitous Coaching Journey

Chryst is in his 26th season of a coaching career that has taken him all across the country (and out of it) for various jobs at the college and professional level.

He's worked at six colleges, including schools at the FCS and Division III level, while also holding positions with two teams in the Canadian Football League and one from the World League of American Football (which became NFL Europe). He also spent three seasons in the NFL, coaching tight ends for the San Diego Chargers from 1999-2001.

School/Team	Position	Years
West Virginia (FBS)	Graduate assistant	1989-90
San Antonio Riders (WLAF)	Running backs/tight ends coach	1991-92
Wisconsin-Platteville (D-III)	Offensive coordinator	1993
Ottawa Rough Riders (CFL)	Quarterbacks coach	1994
Illinois State (FCS)	Offensive coordinator	1995
Saskatchewan Roughriders (CFL)	Offensive coordinator	1996
Oregon State (FBS)	Offensive coordinator	1997-98
San Diego Chargers (NFL)	Tight ends coach	1999-2001
Wisconsin (FBS)	Tight ends coach	2002
Oregon State (FBS)	Offensive coordinator	2003-04
Wisconsin (FBS)	Offensive coordinator	2005-11
Pittsburgh (FBS)	Head coach	2012-2014

Ties to the Carousel Chaos

The coaching carousel can sometimes resemble a college football version of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," and Chryst's role in the craziness fits in perfectly with this notion. He has ended up at Wisconsin because previous coach Andersen went to Oregon State, which had an opening after Mike Riley went to Nebraska.

Chryst and Riley have a longstanding coaching relationship dating back to the early 1990s, when Riley was head coach of the short-lived San Antonio Riders of the WLAF and Chryst was his running backs and tight ends coach. When Riley landed the Oregon State job in 1997, he brought along Chryst as his offensive coordinator, and he also had Chryst join his staff with the NFL's San Diego Chargers as tight ends coach from 1999-2001.

Riley went back to OSU in 2003, and Chryst was again on staff as the Beavers' offensive coordinator for those first two seasons.

The relationship will come full circle on Oct. 10, 2015, when Wisconsin visits Nebraska.

Award-Winner Mentor

Chryst's long and winding coaching career has enabled him to work with and develop a lot of star players.

At Oregon State, he coached the school's career rushing leader, Ken Simonton, during his freshman season in 1998. Then in 2003-04, he pulled the strings on a Beavers offense led by eventual NFL veterans Derek Anderson at quarterback and Steven Jackson at running back. 

Jason Redmond/Associated Press

The list of Wisconsin offensive standouts he coached is endless, but among the most notable were running backs Montee Ball and John Clay, tight end Lance Kendricks, offensive tackle Joe Thomas and quarterback Russell Wilson.

And in his short time at Pittsburgh, Chryst's standouts have included defensive tackle Aaron Donald (who won both the Bednarik and Nagurski awards in 2013), sophomore wide receiver Tyler Boyd and sophomore running back James Conner, who broke Tony Dorsett's single-season school rushing record this year. 

A Sports Family

The Chryst family has football in its bloodline, starting with Paul's father, George. George Chryst won 79 games in 14 seasons at Division III Wisconsin-Platteville from 1979-1992, a period that also included 10 years as the school's athletic director (during which time he hired a basketball coach, Bo Ryan, who would go on to lead Wisconsin to the Final Four this past season).

Chryst's brother, George "Geep" Chryst, played linebacker for three seasons at Princeton and has been a coach since the late 1980s. He's in his fourth season as quarterbacks coach for the San Francisco 49ers. And Geep Chryst's son, Keller Chryst, was a 4-star quarterback recruit who is redshirted this season at Stanford.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter @realBJP.