When Big Ten media days appear on the calendar every year, the upcoming season starts to feel real and present.

After no official media day last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a welcome sight seeing Wisconsin HC Paul Chryst take the podium and talk about what is to come in September.

Honestly, it was even welcome to see former Wisconsin HC Bret Bielema answer questions about his new job at Illinois.

If you need any indication about the significance of media days returning to an in-person environment, just take the beginning of Chryst’s opening statement: “I never thought I’d be saying this, but excited to be at media days and have the opportunity to get back to the new normal.”

Here’s that, as well as everything the Wisconsin head coach said during his time at the podium during Big Ten media days:

Opening statement

“Well it certainly is really good to be here. I never thought I’d be saying this, but excited to be at media days and have the opportunity to get back to the new normal. When you go to media days, it feels like the start of the season. And I’m obviously really excited for our season. I’m looking forward to many of you getting to know the three players that came with me down here—cornerback Faion Hicks, linebacker Jack Sanborn and tight end Jake Ferguson. But it was great having the opportunity to have spring ball and to have a good summer. Really looking forward to having training camp, and obviously all pointing towards the season. And I really do like our team, and appreciate the work they’re putting in. We’ve still got a lot more work that needs to be done to try to take advantage of the opportunities that will come this fall. We’re certainly looking forward to it.”

On what his team can take away from last year's early offensive success

“It’s all about scoring more points than your opponent, right. There are so many things you look back on each season, whether it’s for an individual player or as a unit. When you talk about scoring points, it’s offensively, what do you have to do. Certainly, we need to be more consistent. And that falls on all of us, to be more consistent and keep developing our players. And make sure we’re doing things that they can do well and fits into how we as a team can play our best football. But obviously, you don’t want those discrepancies like you said. We have to work to be more consistent.”

On encouraging players to contribute, whether the plays make the difference in the game

“I think that’s a great question. I think you want your players to understand that you don’t know…if you put a number on the first play, the second play…we don’t even know how many we’re going to have total to play in that game. Whether it’s offensively, defensively, special teams. At the end of the game you can look back and say ‘that was one of those handful of plays that truly made a difference.’ Yet you don’t know that that’s going to be…I believe you try to coach, and more importantly you try to play the game with an attitude and approach that every play is so important. And you don’t know when that significant play when you look back and say ‘that was one of those plays.’ So I think sometimes it’s personalities that’re involved. Some personalities, it’s freeing them up to go make those plays. Some personalities it’s finding ways to relax them or to focus in on having enough confidence to go make that play. That’s kind of the beauty of athletics and certainly one of the things that many of our coaches enjoy about coaching…it’s ‘how can you help them to actually go out and play the game.’ I think you just take advantage of each play and play it like it is that opportunity. And it may not come your way, you may be a cornerback and it was a run going the other way. But the beauty of it is you don’t know. So often there’s things that the game of football can kind of teach you and reinforces that is a great carryover to how you can approach your life.”

On how he can harness momentum from the Bucks' championship & use their run to help his football team

“There’s a couple things in that. One, congratulations to them. I think for everyone, not just from the state, but certainly everyone in the state it was exciting. It was meaningful and gave great examples. Obviously, I was a fan of the Bucks, and certainly of Giannis [Antetokounmpo]. But when you see the whole team and Coach Bud and the organization and how they’ve navigated everything, you can’t help but become bigger and bigger fans. I don’t know that you say ‘the Bucks won it and this is how we’re going to take what they did and transfer it.’ But I also think there’s great lessons to be learned in it, in the way that all of our guys followed it. In our locker room, we don’t have every player as a Bucks fan. But when there’s enough energy and they see their teammates get excited about it, there was a lot of interest in it. You pull up clips of press conferences and videos. I’m fascinated by how Giannis [Antetokounmpo] goes about it. He speaks about what we talk about in being in the moment and taking advantage of opportunities, and about how the best way to take advantage of the opportunity is by putting it all out there. I think he and the team backs it up. So there’s great life lessons, there’s great sport lessons in what they did. We’ve got another challenge and that’s an opportunity to write our own story, and every team in this conference has that. That’s what the season is all about.

On opening the season against Penn State

“There’s a lot to be excited about. You’re always going to be excited about your home opener. Like many teams in the conference, opening up in-conference is a big deal. Certainly, when you have an opportunity Penn State, that’s always a big challenge and a big opportunity. We’re obviously looking forward to that. Not a lot of the guys played in that game, and yet their team this year presents a ton of challenges. It’s a big game, they’re all big games. But certainly we know that this one is and that’s what we have to put our work into. Not just for the Penn State game, but certainly that’s where it all begins and we need to make sure we put the work in.”

On Graham Mertz's development & what areas of his game he wants to see the QB improve

“I think you’re accurate, he did some really good things and has areas he can improve. What I appreciate from Graham is that he sees that and recognizes that. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about Graham, any player and any coach. You’re looking for consistency and you’re looking for consistency at a high level. I think that he’s capable of that. He’s shown that he has the ability to do that. What I also love about this game is that it’s not just one guy. It’s going to take everyone. He can certainly help them. Whether it’s guys on offense or defense or special teams, we have to find ways to help them. I don’t know that we’re any different to any other team. We’re at our best when our team is playing together, playing off each other and playing for each other.

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