A bug or ennui!?!

Roundtable probably has some contractual obligation with WTKA, and with Sam out I think it would've been tough to do the show with just two regulars.  (Imagine the digressions if it was only Seth and Craig!)  So, Brian probably decided to be a good soldier and report for duty.

And while Seth upthread said it's a cold, I've had some just-a-colds that enveloped my brain in soupy fog and make gravity feel like Earth swapped places with a neutron star.  It looks like Brian was trying to tough out a real slobberknocker of a bug.

I don’t know if “funny” is the right word for Craig. More like amusing but even that’s not quite it. And although the snap at Ira was a brief return to cranky Brian, his football insights are always on. 

I think that Wisconsin had a number of reasons to fire Chryst so early. First and foremost, his teams' performance has progressively and noticeably declined over the last three seasons. The Solid Verbal described Wisconsin as a B student with B+/A- grades because they always showed up and did the little things right. That allowed Wisconsin to dominate teams with similar or lesser talent levels and at least make a respectable showing against more talented teams. But the little things have started to fall off for Chryst's most recent teams. You could see it when Illinois flipped the script and "out-executed" Wisconsin at its own game.

Second, I think Wisconsin's athletic department had the unexpected foresight to realize that the traditional coaching search cycle has completely changed. Teams are not waiting until November or December to fire coaches. Everyone has taken their cues from USC's and LSU's approaches last season. Fire your coach early and get a head start on the search for your new coach. These searches have turned into musical chairs and you do not want to be looking for a seat at the end of the track.

That new paradigm and the specific jobs available put Wisconsin in a precarious position because they already have a prime head coaching candidate on staff. Someone will hire Leonhard as a head coach this cycle. If Chryst is not the answer and Leonhard leaves, then Wisconsin will either have to keep Chryst as a lame duck for another one season or jump into a coaching search after the best candidates have accepted other jobs.

Ultimately, I do not think Wisconsin will take a run at Leipold. The last time that Wisconsin looked outside the Alvarez coaching tree, they hired Gary Andersen, which went poorly for everyone. Leipold may be a geographic match, but he has almost no professional ties to Wisconsin.* He spent two or three seasons at Wisconsin as a graduate assistant. My best guess is that, absent a total meltdown, Wisconsin will conduct a nominal coaching search, but in the end will hire Leonhard as its next head coach.

*Yes, he grew up an hour away from Madison and developed his reputation as the head coach of Wisconsin-Whitewater. That's a geographic connection. Wisconsin and Wisconsin-Whitewater are very different schools with different athletic cultures.