IOWA CITY, Iowa – Like many who heard the news on Sunday that Paul Chyrst had been fired as the head football coach at Wisconsin, Don Patterson was shocked.

He was also disappointed in the timing because Patterson felt that Chryst deserved at least the rest of the 2022 season to right the ship.

Wisconsin Athletic Director Chris McIntosh felt differently.

McIntosh, a former Wisconsin offensive lineman, apparently had seen enough after just five games, the final straw being this past Saturday’s 34-10 home loss to Illinois, whose head coach is former Wisconsin head coach Bret Bielema.

Wisconsin was held to just two rushing yards, which is hard to even comprehend given its long-standing success with running the ball.

The 24-point loss also lowered Wisconsin’s record to 2-3 overall and 0-2 in the Big Ten.

So, there is no denying that the Wisconsin program was moving in the wrong direction in Chryst’s eighth season as head coach.

But on the other hand, Chryst also had a 67-26 overall record as the Wisconsin head coach, including 6-1 in bowl games. The Badgers also won three Big Ten West Division titles under Chryst.

That level of success probably would make somebody a coaching legend at Iowa, but at Wisconsin, it gets you fired.

Barry Alvarez built a monster in Madison that Chryst was struggling to sustain and now Chryst is out and has been replaced on an interim basis by Wisconsin defensive coordinator and former Badger defensive back Jim Leonhard.

It will sort of be as if Leonhard is auditioning for the job and has at least seven games, and maybe a bowl game, to show what he can do as the head coach.

Perhaps that’s one reason why McIntosh acted so quickly because he wants to see Leonhard perform the duties as head coach before making an official offer.

But the timing still doesn’t sit well with Patterson, who spent 20 seasons on Hayden Fry’s coaching staff at Iowa from 1979 to 1998, and was the head coach at Western Illinois from 1999 to 2009.

Patterson respects Chryst as a coach, and as a person, and Patterson just feels that Wisconsin could’ve shown a little more patience in this case.

A native of Madison, Wisconsin and a former Wisconsin quarterback, Chryst is a Badger through and through.

He seemed the perfect fit when he returned to his alma mater to be head coach, and for a while, it was a pretty good fit.

Wisconsin combined to finish 34-7 in Chryst’s first three seasons as head coach from 2015 to 2017, but was just a combined 15-8 since the start of the 2020 season.

Meanwhile, Patterson also broke down Iowa’s 27-14 loss to No. 4 Michigan this past Saturday at Kinnick Stadium, and game in which Iowa never led and trailed 20-0 after three quarters, and he looked ahead to this coming Saturday night’s game at Illinois.

Patterson praised Michigan for starting quickly, and he praised Iowa for its effort, and for not folding after falling behind by 20 points.

He also praised Iowa quarterback Spencer Petras for making some nice throws against Michigan, but Patterson also felt that Petras’s statistics were somewhat misleading because Petras padded his stats on Iowa’s final possession of the game when the outcome was all but decided.

Patterson’s segment usually lasts for 60 minutes, but it went over on Monday due to having so much to talk about.

It starts at the beginning of the two-hour podcast.

Enjoy.