Of course, #MerryChrystMas is trending on Twitter after this news from the Wisconsin State Journal:

College football’s worst-kept secret is no longer even that.

The University of Wisconsin officially introduced Paul Chryst as its new coach Wednesday evening, just one week after Gary Andersen departed for Oregon State.

Chryst compiled a 19-19 record over the past three seasons at Pittsburgh. The Madison native played for the Badgers in the late 80s — most notably at quarterback and tight end — and was the program’s offensive coordinator from 2005-11 after serving as its tight ends coach in 2002.

“As early as I can remember, Badger football was a part of our lives,” Chryst said. “Then to be able to come back, more than once, is pretty special. I’ve flown into Madison a bunch of times, but this certainly felt different.”

UW’s offense averaged more than 40 points per game in his final two years as the offensive coordinator.

Chryst was first reported to be UW’s choice Thursday night, but the school could not officially offer the job until Wednesday.

“The first person I thought of when Gary Andersen informed me that he was leaving was Paul Chryst,” UW athletic director Barry Alvarez said. “I watched very closely from afar how he was building his program (at Pitt). The things that Paul has learned and how he’s built that team and how he has recruited some of the top players in the ACC, those are all things that resonated with me.

“He’s ready. The time is right.”

Chryst reportedly expects to bring Pitt offensive coordinator Joe Rudolph and defensive coordinator Matt House with him to Madison, but sources say House will be the Badgers’ defensive line coach.

Rudolph was a successful recruiting coordinator for UW when he was the team’s tight ends coach before leaving for Pitt with Chryst.

UW defensive coordinator Dave Aranda reportedly will not follow Andersen to Oregon State and could retain his role with the Badgers, although he has many other suitors. …

Alvarez said on his radio show Tuesday night that he promised the Badgers’ assistant coaches that the program’s new coach would “seriously” interview anyone who wanted to remain in Madison.

“We’ll be able to put together a great staff,” Chryst said. “I look forward to putting a group together but haven’t finalized anything.”

As for his “great staff”: It’s most likely not Chryst’s call, but you know, Paul, a UW graduate really should announce Badger games. And he and I are classmates (political science, 1988), and we’ve been in at least one other room together (a UW Band concert in Platteville when Chryst was introduced as coming to Madison).

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel adds:

UW athletic director Barry Alvarez introduced Chryst during a news conference in the Nicholas-Johnson Pavilion.

“I’m thrilled to welcome the entire Chryst family to come back to Madison, to come back home,” Alvarez said.

Alvarez said he was contacted by “a number of well-known head coaches and high-ranking assistant coaches” about the job but the first person he thought of was Chryst.

“I have great respect for him as both a football coach and a person,” Alvarez said.

Said Chryst after being introduced, “Obviously this a big moment. I couldn’t be more grateful, honored and certainly appreciative of such an opportunity.”

“There is a spirit that is undeniable here,” Chryst said. “As great a day as today is, I don’t want it to be the best day.”

He said he was looking forward to getting to work and to “truly do something special” at Wisconsin.

“I grew up in Madison,” Chryst said. “…As early as I can remember it, Badger football was part of our life.”

Chryst was asked whether Wisconsin was a “destination job” for him, after Bret Bielema and Gary Andersen left for Arkansas and Oregon State before him.

“I think that when you talk about destination job,” he said. “I think you’ve got to earn the right to stay that long.”

He cited Alvarez and UW basketball coach Bo Ryan as two examples of coaches who earned that right.

Chryst acknowledged that his late father, George, a longtime football coach, including at UW-Platteville, would be proud.

He related a talk he had with Ryan, who asked him, “What do you think George would say if he found out I was coaching the basketball team and you were coaching football?”

Ryan was a longtime basketball coach at Platteville and was there when George Chryst was the football coach.

Chryst would not say yet who he would have as assistants, but according to sources, current UW assistants Dave Aranda and Bill Busch are solid candidates to be retained. Both are in their second season at UW and both came to Madison with Andersen.

UW finished in the top 20 nationally in all four major defensive statistical categories in Aranda’s first season — sixth in scoring defense, seventh in total defense, fifth in rushing defense and 17th in passing defense.

UW this season is 13th in scoring defense, fourth in total defense, 17th in rushing defense and fifth in passing defense. The Badgers were blown out, though, in the Big Ten title game by Ohio State, 59-0.

Busch, a graduate assistant under Alvarez in 1994, works with both safeties and linebackers. He is a tenacious recruiter who recently secured an oral commitment from Dallas tailback Jordan Stevenson, who initially committed to Texas.

According to a source close to the UW program, Chryst hopes to bring offensive line coach Bob Bostad back to UW. Bostad, in his first season with the Tennessee Titans, was on UW’s staff from 2006-’11. During that time he coached tight ends and the offensive line. He also was the running-game coordinator.

“It would only make the program better if Paul brought back some of those guys,” said former UW offensive lineman John Moffitt, who started a total of 42 games from 2007-’10.

Some observers are less than enthusiastic because of Christ’s 19-19 record at Pitt. That, however, might be a major accomplishment because of Chryst’s predecessors, in chronological order:

• Dave Wannstedt (yes, the ex-Bears coach): “Forced out,” to quote CBS Pittsburgh.
• Mike Haywood: Hired to replace Wannstedt, but fired after one month after he was arrested on domestic abuse charges.
• Todd Graham: Unlike Haywood, he actually coached the Panthers for a game. He coached the Panthers for an entire season, in fact, before he left for Arizona State.

CBS Pittsburgh reports this morning that the person who hired Chryst and his predecessors, athletic director Steve Pederson, is being fired.

This photo also showed up on Twitter:

That’s Paul and his father, George, who played football for Wisconsin and was an assistant coach before George because UW-Platteville’s athletic director and football coach. That brought the Chryst family to Platteville so that Paul could be part of Platteville High School’s first state football title, in 1983.

The reasons Chryst is the ideal choice go beyond his UW ties. (If it was about UW ties, then John Coatta, a former UW quarterback, wouldn’t have had three disastrous seasons as the Badgers coach from 1967 to 1969.) UW runs the ball first and foremost. Every defense they play knows that, and yet UW set scoring records when Chryst was the  offensive coordinator, because he effectively worked in the pass and managed to disguise what the Badgers intended to do through formations and motion. Alvarez is at least intimidating to work for, but Chryst has already dealt with that. UW is an academically challenging school, but Chryst has already dealt with that too, and successfully.

On Wisconsin.