Wisconsin should hire Petersen or from within

After annihilating Nebraska in the Big Ten Championship game this past weekend 70-31, things were looking up for the Wisconsin Badgers football program after a disappointing five loss season. The Badgers were headed for their third consecutive trip to Pasadena and the Rose Bowl and the coach that made it all happen? There was no way would leave and the program would be in great hands for years to come.

Fast forward to today and it’s a much different story in Madison. Bret Bielema has left for Arkansas and the UW is in need of a new head football coach. Now, I don’t know about you, but this departure has left me wondering why a coach who just won his third consecutive conference title would leave a place where he, quite frankly, had it made.

Although Bielema endured some criticism for the five loss season, as Barry Alvarez’s hand-picked successor he had an unbelievable amount of job security, and most of his recruiting ties were in the Midwest. Now he goes to Arkansas where he has no recruiting ties (I think he’ll soon find that SEC recruiting is a different animal from BIG recruiting as well), and less job security—What happens if he struggles to right the ship at Arkansas within a few years?  

So what made him leave? Judging from his comments at his press conference where he was announced as Arkansas’ new head coach, it might not have been just for a pay raise.

“When I began to have more and more success at Wisconsin, I stayed, but a lot of my coaches left. I just wasn't able to compensate them in a way that other coaches were.” said Bielema. He continued on saying; “I had three coaches come to me the day after the game and they had been contacted by other schools, offering them money that I can't bring them at Wisconsin. Wisconsin isn't wired to do that at this point.”

Clearly, Bielema didn’t feel as if he could put together the staff he wanted based on the resources available at Wisconsin. Nationally, Wisconsin ranks 11th in terms of athletic department revenue (Arkansas is 14^th), so why can’t the University afford to pay more for their assistants? I understand a lot of the money goes towards academics but if a six million buyout is not an issue to bring former offensive coordinator and current Pittsburgh head coach, Paul Chryst back to Wisconsin, then why can’t that money be used for assistant coaches? This whole problem could have potentially been avoided.

As for the new coach, I would like to see Wisconsin hire someone who has ties to the program, preferably one of the current assistants such as co-defensive coordinators Charlie Partridge or Chris Ash. Wisconsin has been putting together one of their best classes ever in 2013, and even better in 2014. Promoting someone from within would help retain a good number of those recruits and would be the way to go if Barry Alvarez would like to keep the staff intact—something that didn’t happen at all last year.

Alvarez stated in his press conference that he wants to hire somebody with head coaching experience, which rules out any of the current assistants. If Alvarez is set on finding someone with those qualifications, Chris Petersen from Boise State is mine (and probably most Badger fans) top choice. Much like Bielema, he recruits high character guys that fit his system and generally outperform their recruiting rankings. Peteresen has a very impressive resume at Boise State that includes two BCS wins and would be a dynamic name for the university to hire. Other names have of course been brought up, such as Miami’s Al Golden and North Carolina State’s Dave Doeren—who is almost certainly staying there after accepting the head coaching job roughly one week ago.

I’m sure Alvarez will look at all the options and make the decision he feels is best for the program, but I really hope it’s Petersen or an in-house promotion.