MADISON -- This year's bye week was important in more ways than one for Wisconsin. The Badgers were able to rest some banged up guys and also get some players back.

Off the field, the pause in the season served as a way for interim head coach Jim Leonhard to lay out his plan to the team if he were to get the job full time.

Leonhard held a meeting with just the players and some of the strength staff. With assistants on the road, it was just a "head coach to players" talk, as offensive tackle Riley Mahlman put it.

"Really last week was the first time I addressed the yearly plan with our team and with the coaches a little bit," Leonhard said. "I think it just helped put them at ease understanding that a lot of this stuff doesn’t change right now, but those thoughts are there."

During Monday's availability, players didn't want to get into the gritty details of what Leonhard shared during the meeting. But the blueprint for the future was laid out to the group.

"I learned he's got a plan," quarterback Graham Mertz said of the meeting. "That's always refreshing. He set it all out for us.

"What an offseason would look like, what the season would look like, how everything would work as far as academics to nutrition to recovery to training room, he went through everything, so it was really informative. I know the guys enjoyed it. It was good to hear that plan out loud and little changes he was going to make."

With the coaching change coming mid-season, Leonhard has had to balance the possibility of looking ahead and handling game prep. Naturally, the latter has taken precedent, and Leonhard noted that they need to have a "week-to-week, day-to-day mentality on the football field."

Leonhard also has ideas in the back of his head of what needs to change at Wisconsin to take the next step as a program.

"I think No. 1 this place has always been about the culture and the players," Leonhard said. "We have to get back to doing that a little bit better. I think we let some things slip and just a little bit of gray and want to make sure we eliminate that in every capacity, whether that’s coach to player, coach to coach. This place means a ton to me and I want to make sure we do everything the right way. Hold these guys accountable to what the standards of Wisconsin are, and I'm excited about that."

That area was part of what resonated with the team.

"The biggest thing he hit us with was remove the gray in everything we do," senior cornerback Alex Smith said. "There's a right way to do it and there's a wrong way to do it, we got to stick to it."

Some of the big-picture questions - who Leonhard might name defensive coordinator, does he stick with those duties, what does the offense look like - will take place after the season.

"There are a lot of big things up in the air," Leonhard said. "What direction do you take, whether defensively, what my role would be, offensively, what the plan would be? There are still a lot of big things that I don’t have an answer for and that I don’t need an answer for. But there are a lot of conversations that I’ve had and I’m excited about what could happen in the future."

"I think his big-picture vision starts in January, it starts after the season," offensive coordinator Bobby Engram said. "We have a short-term plan of how we want to continue to operate to be successful this season, but I think it's the right thing to do to let the guys know come January, February, March when we roll out winter conditioning, things will change... It's good that he's letting them know that he has a plan and he plans on rolling it out when the time is right."

The answer to some of the questions still aren't clear and, as Leonhard mentioned, they don't have to. Each of the changes he'll make will have the players, and their development, in mind.

"I have a lot of thoughts on what we could do better," Leonhard said. "No. 1 being that player development side. If it truly is about the guys of how you develop on and off the field, we're going to put a lot of resources into that and making sure our players have the right people around them all day, every day in all areas of being a student athlete. That would be a huge emphasis that hopefully would change for the better."

Maybe the biggest testimony of support for Leonhard is the buy-in from the team. Oct. 31 marked the end of a 30-day window for Wisconsin players to enter the transfer portal ahead of the traditional period, if they desired. Only three players - Stephan Bracey Jr., Markus Allen and Deacon Hill - elected to transfer. Logan Brown, who is headed to Kansas, was dismissed from the program.

"I think it just impressed me that he had a plan," Mahlman said. "He's not technically the head coach yet, he's still interim, but he's definitely thinking about us, thinking about the program, thinking ahead, which I think everyone notices and everyone really respects."

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