Pitt head coach Paul Chryst is now the former Pitt head coach as Chryst has officially accepted an offer to become the new head coach of the Wisconsin Badgers, ending days of speculation that a deal was done.
Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez targeted Chryst, who has ties to the Wisconsin program, almost immediately when Gary Anderson left the Badgers to take the Oregon State job.
Chryst is a Wisconsin boy, who now has the opportunity to return to his alma mater, but return home as well. He was a three-year football letterman as a quarterback at Wisconsin and earned his degree in 1988.
According to sources, the Wisconsin head coaching job is the only one that Chryst would have left Pitt for. Opportunities to go home don’t come by often for a football coach and this time, unlike two years ago, it was hard for Chryst to pass up the opportunity.
Before taking the Pitt job, Chryst spent seven seasons as Wisconsin’s offensive coordinator under both Alvarez and Bret Bielema. He had been considered a serious candidate for the job two years ago, but since Alvarez had helped him get the Pitt job only a year earlier, Alvarez didn’t feel comfortable trying to lure him away so soon.
While at Pitt, Chryst compiled a 19-19 record with more than a few bad losses mixed in.
Yet while it doesn’t reflect in wins and losses, Chryst leaves the Pitt program in a better state than it was in when he arrived.
A search for the new Pitt coach has already begun as the Panthers are now looking for their fifth head coach since 2010.
Pitt will face Houston in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl on Jan. 2.
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