ESPN.com’s Austin Ward asks:

Losing 59-0 in the Big Ten title game is one thing. That was a short-term setback, and it didn’t change the fact that Gary Andersen had just won the West Division and was starting to load up his roster with talented, athletic players who could continue to make his program an annual contender.

Losing another coach to what the Badgers would almost certainly view as a less-prestigious program is the bigger shot to the ego, though, and it will be the cause of some seriously difficult looks in the mirror for Barry Alvarez and his athletic department. This might well be another hurdle that can be cleared in a small time frame, but it suggests there might be more long-term issues for Wisconsin if it can’t keep its successful coaches around in a conference that appears to be back on the upswing.

No offense to Oregon State or Arkansas, but those aren’t the kinds of programs that Wisconsin would like to consider as its football peers, and yet Andersen is on his way to the former after Bret Bielema surprisingly bolted for the latter. And while it’s hard to consider Wisconsin a stepping-stone job based on what appear to be lateral moves, there seems to be something keeping it from becoming a final destination.

“The last two coaches have proven that,” Alvarez said. “It wasn’t a destination job for them, but it was for me and it is for [basketball coach] Bo Ryan. Everybody is a little bit different. I don’t worry about that.

“We’ve got a good job, we’ve got a good place, we’ve got a consistent program. We’ve got a lot to sell. I’m not trying to paint any other picture other than a very positive picture, because it is positive.”

The list of pros is indeed long for anybody who would like to come take over for Andersen, and Alvarez was expecting a long night on Wednesday with his “phone ringing off the hook” with candidates interested in leading a program that has played in five consecutive New Year’s Day bowls. There are upgraded facilities on hand, including a new weight room and an academic center. And the path to the College Football Playoff currently isn’t the most arduous around, though winning the Big Ten West isn’t exactly a cakewalk with Nebraska, Minnesota and occasionally Iowa on hand in a division that can hand out a few bruises.

But there are certainly cons that come with the Wisconsin job, from a shallower recruiting pool in its backyard to high academic standards that can potentially trim its options to fill out the roster. But those didn’t stop Andersen or Bielema from winning games, competing for championships or heading to prestigious postseason bowls. The issues in retaining those two coaches appear to be things Wisconsin actually has some control over and could change.

Is there really no room for flexibility in terms of getting in a few more recruits who might not have traditionally qualified? There’s nothing wrong with a program rigorously holding itself to tough academic standards, but that makes it tougher to put together the best possible team and to possibly keep coaches who could more easily craft a squad in their image elsewhere.

Why doesn’t Wisconsin have an assistant ranked higher than No. 77 in the nation in annual salary, according to the most recent USA Today database? There’s no cap on spending for coaches, which makes it the one commodity in which schools with title aspirations should never get thrifty.

How can Wisconsin expect to keep a coaching staff together if it doesn’t rank any higher than No. 9 in the league in combined compensation for assistant coaches, behind the likes of Maryland, Rutgers and even rival Minnesota? Bielema had already railed against the lack of financial support to keep his assistants around when he left to take over the Razorbacks.

The possible academic hurdle can’t be cleared with a checkbook, but certainly the other problem can be addressed simply by spending more money, and no school in the Big Ten can make any sort of legitimate claim that it doesn’t have cash rolling in, thanks to its television contracts. With Wisconsin’s passionate fan base filling Camp Randall Stadium, it’s also unlikely that its revenue stream is going to dry up any time soon.

With Andersen, though, dollar signs probably weren’t the tipping point; Oregon State actually checked in one spot behind Wisconsin nationally at No. 41 in payroll for assistants.

So what else is there? Perhaps the problem is with the boss, with Alvarez looming over a program he led for so many years. Given that he was able to win at a high level despite some of those limitations, might he or the athletic department be unwilling to make concessions that the game has truly changed since Alvarez was on the sideline? That question might be more difficult to answer and even more challenging to fix, given Alvarez’s iconic stature with Wisconsin.

Ward reports on Ohio State for ESPN.com, so his mentioning UW’s academic standards is a bit ironic, since Ohio State’s academic standard for admission appears to be having a pulse rate greater than zero.

The advantage of having observed UW athletics for longer than Ward (who apparently joined ESPN in 2012) is that I can correctly point out that UW did at least relax academic standards to allow such players as Brent Moss, Alvarez’s first star running back, to get in. That doesn’t mean UW doesn’t still have higher academic standards for athletes than other schools.

When this first came up a long time ago, the thought of this writer and his father, both UW graduates, was that we didn’t want our degrees cheapened by letting in lesser students to UW because of their athletic ability. My opinion has changed somewhat for two reasons. First, colleges do let in students who don’t necessarily meet base academic standards under several criteria beyond athletic ability — to name two possibilities, some minority students or, in the case of private colleges, children or grandchildren of alumni.

As a graduate of our state’s world class university who previously worked at a college not known as being academically select, I am less convinced how much this matters. Your college diploma, after all, is based on what you do in college, not high school. There are a lot of college students who got good grades in high school because they were smart, not necessarily for exerting themselves scholastically. Many of them get to college and find out the hard way that it’s a lot tougher than high school. I suspect I have gotten no more than one job in my lifetime because of my UW diploma, and that was before I actually got said diploma.

But it’s pretty obvious that UW isn’t going to relax its admission standards enough to make a significant difference. Therefore, you have to be able to succeed with what’s there, instead of trying to change things and failing. That suggests (as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) …

According to a source close to the UW program, former UW assistant Paul Chryst, a Madison native, is poised to return to his alma mater.

“I thought this would be the scenario from Day 1,” the source told the Journal Sentinel on Thursday night. “He will put together a good staff.”

Neither Chryst nor Alvarez was available Thursday night.

“I always keep a short list,” Alvarez said Wednesday in discussing the stunning departure of Andersen to Oregon State. “And we will proceed in our search for a new head coach immediately.”

UW officials posted the job opening Thursday. According to the posting, applications must be received by Dec. 17.

Chryst, 49, is in his third season as head coach at Pittsburgh. His overall record is 19-19 but he inherited a mess from former coach Todd Graham and instituted a new offensive system. …

According to the source close to the UW program:

Alvarez, who flew to Tampa, Fla., Thursday for an Outback Bowl promotion, was able to meet with Chryst. Chryst was already in Florida, assumed to be recruiting.

The source believes Chryst could bring with him Joe Rudolph, who is the Panthers’ assistant head coach/offensive coordinator.

Rudolph was a two-time all-Big Ten offensive lineman under Alvarez and was UW’s tight ends coach from 2008-’11.

“Joe will be able to sell Wisconsin,” the source said. “That is important.”

The source also believes Chryst might be able to lure Bob Bostad back to UW. Bostad is the offensive line coach with the Tennessee Titans.

“He had the itch to coach in the NFL, but Paul and Bob are tight,” the source said.

Bostad, a native of Pardeeville, was on UW’s staff with Chryst from 2006-’11. He served as the tight ends coach, offensive line coach and running game coordinator.

Two years ago around this time came the unbelievable news that Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema, having just won the Big Ten championship game, was leaving to coach at Arkansas.

Two years later comes the less-unbelievable, though certainly unexpected, news that Wisconsin football coach Gary Andersen, having just lost the Big Ten championship game, was leaving to coach at Oregon State.

Perhaps it’s not unexpected for two reasons. Andersen’s entire career before now had been spent out West, which does play a different kind of football than the Big T1e4n, or at least the players Andersen inherited from Bielema.

The other thing is that it can’t be easy to coach in the shadow of athletic director and former coach Barry Alvarez. That’s probably less of an issue for, say, men’s basketball coach Bo Ryan (who is unlikely to be intimidated by higher-ups) or men’s hockey coach Mike Eaves (who has his own problems right now). But Alvarez is not only the football coach’s boss, he built the program from the dregs of Don Mor(t)on and his Veer from Victory offense.

The Wisconsin State Journal’s Tom Oates has some questions:

Gary Andersen pulled a Bret Bielema on Wednesday when he was hired as the coach at Oregon State after just two years on the job at UW. Just like in 2012, when Bielema jumped ship to go to Arkansas after seven seasons at UW, no one saw it coming. Not even Alvarez.

“I was very surprised,” he said. “I had no idea this was in the works.”

Andersen’s sudden departure raises many questions, but before I take a stab at why he left and who should replace him, what first comes to mind are these questions: When did UW become a steppingstone job for coaches? And what does Andersen’s abrupt departure say about the state of the UW job?

Ever since Alvarez turned the program around in the early 1990s, UW has thought of itself as a destination job. It’s not yet time to revise that thinking, but clearly this is no longer a place coaches go to grow old.

“The last two coaches have proven that; it wasn’t a destination job for them,” Alvarez said. “But it was for me, and is for (men’s basketball coach) Bo Ryan. Everybody’s a little bit different. I don’t worry about that. We’ve got a good job. We’ve got a good place. We’ve got a consistent program. We’ve got a lot to sell.”

Whatever it was UW was selling, Andersen wasn’t buying it. Still, he left for entirely different reasons than Bielema.

Upon his departure, Bielema talked about having more money for his assistant coaches and embracing the challenge of the Southeastern Conference. Alvarez said in his press conference that Andersen told him he was leaving for family reasons. Alvarez later told the State Journal that Andersen had grown increasingly frustrated over UW’s admissions policies for recruits, which are more rigid than some of its Big Ten counterparts.

Both of those reasons make sense for Andersen.

A Utah native who came to UW after coaching four seasons at Utah State, he never looked truly comfortable in Madison; he never seemed like a particularly good fit. Although Andersen is a genuinely nice man, he was a homebody who didn’t get close to boosters or fans. Also, it seemed likely that Andersen would want to return to the West at some point after living his entire life out there.

“I thought Gary was a good fit,” Alvarez said. “There was never any talk about, ‘Someday I’d like to get back to that part of the country.’ Maybe when you’re away for a while, that kind of settles in. I don’t know that.”

It also figures that Andersen had trouble recruiting the kind of speed and athleticism to UW that he had at Utah State, and not just from the junior-college ranks. Alvarez told the State Journal he and Andersen had an ongoing discussion about Andersen’s concerns over UW’s admissions standards and pointed to Sun Prairie defensive tackle Craig Evans as an example. Evans committed to UW, then changed his mind when it became apparent he wouldn’t be admitted. He is now a freshman at Michigan State.

Asked by the State Journal if Andersen had lost potential players because they couldn’t qualify, Alvarez said, “I know the one at Sun Prairie really bothered him.”

Alvarez joked that his next hire would be his last for the football program. To make that happen, he needs to make sure his next coach really is a good fit. For entirely different reasons, neither Bielema nor Andersen were ever truly embraced by UW fans.

For their next coach, the Badgers need someone who understands the program, the school and the state so he can play to UW’s strengths. They need a coach who can develop players and outcoach people, because the level of the talent recruited hasn’t changed appreciably through three coaches and 25 years.

And, of course, they need a coach who will stick around.

“Having ties to Wisconsin is not important,” Alvarez said. “I’d like to find someone that has head coaching experience. … I think it’s important that there’s a fit. I thought Gary was a good fit.”

But while observers debate whether Alvarez should pursue a coach with UW ties — Pitt coach Paul Chryst, Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, Pitt offensive coordinator Joe Rudolph and UW defensive coordinator Dave Aranda come to mind — or go after a current head coach such as Al Golden of Miami (Fla.), Dave Clawson of Wake Forest or Justin Fuente of Memphis, a bigger question might be whether UW needs to change the equation in order to retain its coaches, up to and including altering its admissions policies.

Since those standards were good enough for Alvarez and Bielema to perpetuate a strong program, that seems neither prudent nor likely. Which makes it even more important that Alvarez hire someone who already knows first-hand how to operate within UW’s parameters.

It seems to me that Chryst is the ideal choice under Oates’ listed parameters. He is the best offensive coordinator UW has ever had. He was a success with less talent than other Big Ten teams because he was able to disguise UW’s usual plays through formations and pre-snap movement to an extent not even matched before or since him. He also is used to the strictures of working in Madison — namely, the academic standards and having Barry Arrogance as your boss.

Chryst replaced Dave Wannstedt, a thrice-flameout as a head coach (first Da Bears, then Miami, then Pitt), and has gotten that program to one game better than .500 and at least competitive now. He’s also likely to run an offense and defense better suited for the kinds of players UW can recruit, as opposed, perhaps, to the kinds of players Andersen wanted

One thing Chryst is not is very outgoing, unlike his father, former UW-Platteville athletic director George Chryst. (The story goes that George got Da Bears to move their training camp to Platteville by filibuster. Bears officials had planned on visiting Platteville and UW-Whitewater on the same day, and George talked so much that it got so late that the trip to Whitewater never occurred.) There is a degree of public interaction required of a big-time football coach, though I’m not sure how much Ryan gets out among the fans, and it hasn’t hurt him. Winning papers over personality issues.

The new coach will not have running back Melvin Gordon, but he will have running back Corey Clement. I’m betting the new coach will not have Andersen’s star quarterback recruit, Austin Kafentzis, although he says he’s taking a wait-and-see approach. I hope the new coach can find a quarterback, because it’s obvious there is not a Big Ten-capable quarterback on the roster. (Kafentzis, it should be pointed out, is not very tall. Neither was Russell Wilson, coached by Chryst. Wilson merely became the best quarterback in UW history based on, yes, one season.)

More on Chryst from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Jeff Potrykus:

“I thought Paul would surface here or Nebraska,” a source close to the UW program said. “What did you think when he didn’t take the Nebraska job? I think Paul knew this was in play.”

Chryst, 49, a native of Madison who played at UW from 1986-’88, was the Badgers’ tight ends coach in 2002. He worked with Riley at Oregon State in 2003 and ’04 but returned to UW in 2005 to run the offense. In his last three seasons as offensive coordinator (2009-’11), UW averaged 31.8 points, 41.5 points and a program-record 44.1 points per game.

Other candidates include North Carolina State coach Dave Doeren, the former UW defensive coordinator, who was spectacular in two years at Northern Illinois, and has had 3-9 and 7-5 teams at N.C. State, a basketball school. Then there’s Bevell, who apparently wants to become a college coach someday, but his career certainly hasn’t gone that direction. (Given the bad taste former UW basketball coach Stu Jackson left by bolting after two years to become a losing NBA coach, Bevell’s NFL experience probably hurts him at UW.)

A few names have come up that I hope don’t get the job, because there’s a reason they’re not where they used to be — Greg Schiano, who Potrykus said “bombed” at Tampa Bay after doing well at Rutgers, but is now out of coaching; Mario Cristobal, Alabama’s offensive line coach after getting fired (wrongly, many apparently claim) at Florida International; and Frank Solich, fired at Nebraska because he wasn’t Tom Osborne, but not all that successful at Ohio. As for Golden (who a member of my church, a Miami graduate, would like to leave), when you’re getting votes of confidence from your athletic director, that doesn’t make you very employable.

The next coach needs to win enough to keep fans in the seats. Football pays most of the freight for UW’s non-revenue-generating athletic programs. Neither Bielema nor Andersen were in danger of getting fired, but those coaches’ success levels are pretty much what the next coach needs to attain to keep his job.