Big Ten players discovering challenges of playing for interim coaches

Michigan State linebacker Jordan Hall talks about rolling with the punches to maintain focus amid adversity, but he never could have expected the haymaker his team absorbed last month.

It was the same type of blow that players at Northwestern, Nebraska and Wisconsin have encountered over the last year. Unexpected firings have left Northwestern and Michigan State playing for interim head coaches, just as Nebraska and Wisconsin did last year.

"Just kind of take the punches as they come," said Hall, whose team has been playing for acting head coach Harlon Barnett since mid-September. "We've had unfortunate activities happen in the last month or two, but just taking them as they go."

That's easier said than done.

Wisconsin's returning players know that all too well. Even though the Badgers started slowly last year, they never expected former coach Paul Chryst to get fired after going 67-26 at his alma mater.

"It stung our hearts a little bit," Wisconsin defensive end James Thompson Jr. recalled.

Wisconsin played the majority of last season with Jim Leonhard as interim head coach. Nebraska played for Mickey Joseph last year once Scott Frost was fired three games into the season.

The coaching changes at Michigan State and Northwestern resulted from off-field issues.

Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald was fired before the season due to a hazing and abuse scandal. Michigan State's Mel Tucker was first suspended and later fired after he acknowledged having what he described as consensual phone sex with activist and rape survivor Brenda Tracy, who has filed a complaint with the school's Title IX office and has said that he sexually harassed her.

The dynamic creates plenty of challenges both for players and coaches. Players must find a way to stay motivated as they play for a coach who didn't necessarily recruit them. Coaches must stay focused while wondering about their own uncertain futures.

"I think the uniqueness in a lot of those things is more about the staff because it's a tough situation," said Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell, who went 6-7 as Ohio State's interim head coach in 2011 after Jim Tressel was fired. "Guys don't know what the future looks like, and in order to get the 18- to 22-year-olds on the same path – the same page – you've got to have all those guys around you on the same path and same page. So there's a lot of things that are probably as important off the field as they are on the field."

Michigan went through a somewhat similar dynamic earlier this year. The Wolverines were without Jim Harbaugh for their first three games and offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore missed the opener, stemming from school-imposed punishments for breaking NCAA rules.

Wolverines receiver Cornelius Johnson said assistants had to take on different roles while Harbaugh was away on game days early in the year, and the coach gained a new perspective as he watched his team on a few Saturdays.

"It could've helped us," Johnson said.

At least in that case, Michigan's players knew Harbaugh would be coming back. Northwestern and Michigan State lost their coaches for good.

Michigan State had just improved to 2-0 when the allegations surrounding Tucker surfaced. The Spartans have gone 0-4 since.

"We're going to fight for just the respect and the honor of wearing a Spartan uniform and going out and representing so many," Barnett said. "We understand we're representing a lot of people."

Northwestern interim coach David Braun has gone 3-3, a notable accomplishment at a program that had posted a combined 4-20 record the last two seasons under Fitzgerald.

"I feel like I've grown exponentially simply through having no other choice," said Braun, who had joined Northwestern's staff as defensive coordinator in January. "This is where your greatest growth comes, in situations of adversity and new trials."

Wisconsin center Tanor Bortolini says the lesson he learned last year is that a team's goals don't have to change just because a new coach is in charge. Bortolini suggests the hardest part of the transition for Michigan State and Northwestern already has taken place.

"It takes a couple of weeks to get used to kind of the new way things go, but I would say the more you go on, the more used to it you get," Bortolini said.

The trick is finding incentive in the weeks after the initial shock of a coaching change.

Pittsburgh Steelers rookie Nick Herbig, an outside linebacker at Wisconsin last season, said the Badgers wanted to make amends for the 2-3 start that resulted in Chryst's exit.

"We kind of felt some of it was on our shoulders because we weren't executing right," Herbig said.

Herbig also wanted to help Leonhard get the job for keeps, something that didn't happen when Wisconsin instead hired Fickell away from Cincinnati. History shows that interim head coaches rarely stick around into the next season.

Georgia Tech stayed with Brent Key after he replaced the fired Geoff Collins and went 4-4 over the final eight games last season. Dabo Swinney has earned two national titles at Clemson and Ed Orgeron won one at LSU after both began their tenures there in interim roles.

But most interim head coaches end up as stopgaps before schools hire outside candidates to take over the following year.

So while the interim coaches and their staffs are pretty much auditioning for jobs – either at their own school or elsewhere – their players are getting an early look at the cut-throat atmosphere they'll encounter if they reach the next level.

"It kind of gave you an eye-opening experience what this is like, the NFL," said Steelers rookie defensive lineman Keeanu Benton, who played at Wisconsin last season. "You see people come and go all the time and some people you've got connections with can be gone in an instant. That just kind of showed you like nobody's invincible."

Reporting by The Associated Press.