Paul Chryst with the PERFECT Paul Chryst answer to ‘who would portray you in a movie?’

On the podcast last week we* were talking about where the Badger football program goes going forward. I said that Paul Chryst will always get you 8-ish wins and bowl appearance every season in perpetuity if you keep him as the head coach. But coming off of that Washington State loss, maybe it’s time to reexamine the program’s goals and maybe they need to make a move if they want to be a realistic national title contender.

Well my opinion completely changed after watching this clip. I’m fine with 8-4 and the Outback Bowl every season if we continue to get sound bites like this from Paul Chryst. It’s perfect. I’m not sure how many people spend any amount of time listening to Paul Chryst press conferences, but I had to every week when I was cutting up audio for sportscasts on WHBL. The man is duller than a plain potato. He makes white bread seem exotic. He says literally the exact same 5 sentences to Badger beat reporters in the same monotone every single week. It’s truly remarkable. Belichek-ian.

And for a while it annoyed me because it’s basically unusable for anything on-air, but then it started to amuse me how consistently boring he was. So when I saw this video making the rounds on Badger Twitter and I got to Chryst at the end of it, I laughed out loud. I laughed for 5 straight minutes! Every other coach was willing to take part in this stupid question in order to showcase their personality. Not Paul Chryst. And you know he just LOATHES these types of media events the Big Ten makes him take part in. He hates having to have a camera on him, he hates the whimsical questions, he hates having to put on a suit, he hates the whole ordeal. I picture him like a toddler in church on Easter Sunday slowing taking his dress clothes off because he can’t stand being in them. Peak unintentional comedy.

Related: I had a text on our station line this morning asking me for the percentage chance that the Badgers win on Saturday at Ohio State, and the percentage chance that they cover.

Let’s start with the first one: Anytime a team takes the field, or diamond, or pitch, they have a chance to win. I don’t care how overmatched they might be, if they show up and play the game, theoretically they could win that game. And as I understand it, the Badgers do plan to make the trip to Columbus on Saturday night and play 4 quarters of football. So I’ll give them a 5% chance to win outright.

The ‘cover’ is a more interesting question. I assumed the Badgers would be in the +26 or +27 range for this game. So I was a bit shocked to see +18 when the lines came out on Monday. Now those that gamble know, especially as it relates to college football, that the first gambling line is almost always a ‘bait’ line. They want to create a line that makes the dummy that is John Q Public (i.e. me) say to himself, ‘WHAT?? There’s no WAY that _____ doesn’t cover __.’ Then all of the public money comes in on that side of the spread, and when the other side hits, they collect all of the money. So when I look at that line I instantly think, ‘WHAT?? There’s no WAY that Ohio State doesn’t 18 points!’ So to me, that must mean Vegas thinks the Badgers actually could cover in the 18-20 point range? I dunno. Gun to my head I’d say 20% chance they cover 18, but given what I just explained, I guess I’ll up it to 40% because I would imagine 75% of the money is on OSU covering right now.

*And by ‘we’ I mean ‘me talking to myself in a literal padded room.’

PS: I would love it if Paul Chryst has some mega-personable alter ego like Ron Swanson with Duke Silver: