MADISON - A day after falling at home to Illinois, a stunning decision was made to move on from Paul Chryst and name defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard the interim head coach. With none of the current headlines coming out of Camp Randall centering around the product on the field, Wisconsin has to quickly shift its attention to a road bout against Northwestern.

BadgerBlitz.com replays our 3-2-1 feature to look back at three takeaways from the past week, two questions heading into the next game and one bold prediction for the Week 6 contest against Northwestern.

A mid-season coaching change is always an indication of a football program in peril, but the loss to the Illini revealed just how glaring the issues with the 2022 football team are.

Getting fire hosed on the road by No. 3 Ohio State is one thing. While not excusable, Wisconsin was an underdog coming in for a reason. Coming out flat in the second half against an inferior - or believed to be inferior - program like Illinois, and being held to a total of two rushing yards is an alarming issue.

Evidently, Chris McIntosh pressed the proverbial big red button that is a coaching change. The move is being applauded by some on the outside due to the fear that the program had been stuck in the mud under Chryst, but the issues on the field can’t magically be fixed with a change in leadership.

Wisconsin’s identity of winning with a powerful running game backed by a strong defense was flipped on its head Saturday afternoon. Illinois running back Chase Brown wore the UW front seven down with 97 of his 129 rushing yards coming in the second half. On the other end, the Wisconsin tradition of having a strong rushing attack was nonexistent as the ground game totaled two yards.

“We understand that our five-game resume is not what we wanted,” Leonhard said. “We have not been playing to our capabilities. Even before this news there were some hard conversations that were had today between coaches, players, among the staff, on how do we get it corrected.”

Many of the issues on the offensive end stem from a line that has yet to put it all together. That is partly due to starting four different combinations in five games, but the group will need to gel and quickly.

On the other side of the ball, UW is working to replace eight starters, which included savvy veterans Jack Sanborn, Leo Chenal and a secondary that was stocked with experience with Faion Hicks, Caesar Williams, Scott Nelson and Collin Wilder. When you go up and down the current depth chart, whether it’s Rodas Johnson at defensive end or Maema Njongmeta and Jordan Turner at inside linebacker, there are a number of players seeing their first share of significant playing time.

With the expectation at Wisconsin being division crowns, it might be later rather than sooner that UW gets things figured out.