Wisconsin on the verge of making a deflating AD hire to replace Chris McIntosh

Wisconsin seems close to pulling the trigger on a new athletic director to replace the recently departed Chris McIntosh. Pete Thamel is reporting that the Badgers are close to hiring Shawn Eichorst, who's currently the chief operating officer at Texas, but the alarming reality is that he was a mediocre athletic director (at best) when he was at Nebraska.

It feels like Wisconsin may be reheating a microwave dinner that went a little stale. However, if he's learned his lessons since Nebraska and is ready to help Wisconsin get to the top of the Big Ten again. Yet, at first blush, it feels a bit deflating. To go from Chris McIntosh to Shawn Eichorst has the vibe of a lateral move instead of a jump in the right direction. There will be a bit of the benefit of the doubt, because his time in Texas may actually help Wisconsin more than his time at Nebraska (besides lessons learned).

Wisconsin seems close to hiring Shawn Eichorst from Texas to be the next athletic director

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Eichorst had both success and frustration at Nebraska. He helped propel the non-traditional sports forward, and a big part of Nebraska's volleyball success can be attributed to his spearheading. But he also hired Bo Pelini and Mike Riley. The Nebraska fans mostly think back at him as a mediocre athletic director, and that's not something Wisconsin fans are going to be thrilled about.

However, at Texas as the chief operating officer, he's been instrumental in all the things Wisconsin needs desperately. Texas hired Eichorst to run the day-to-day operations of the athletic department, oversee football operations, manage the budgets, including fundraising, capital projects, hiring staff to help with the pay-to-play, and be an executor of the vision of increasing the NIL for Texas.s. This is all stuff Wisconsin needs desperately. And not just at a 30,000-view level, they need someone on the ground.

His Texas experience and his connection to Wisconsin may be the biggest reasons he's getting the gig (if it ends up happening all the way). Those two experiences will outweigh every other in the mind of the search committee.

Wisconsin seems to like that he's part of the Barry Alvarez tree. Eichorst was at Wisconsin back before he became the athletic director at Miami or at Nebraska. According to Nebraska's bio page, "Before heading to Miami, Eichorst was the Deputy Athletics Director at Wisconsin. He was the Chief Operating Officer and oversaw the department’s daily operations, as well as the men’s basketball program under the direction of Director of Athletics, Hall of Fame Football Coach and former Husker Barry Alvarez."

This may be the appeal for the Badgers, as rarely do they stray too far away from Wisconsin people when making high-profile hires. This felt like the time to do it, and maybe they think they are getting a bit of a hybrid of both. A Wisconsin connection, especially to Barry Alvarez, but also an athletic director who's been around the country for big-time programs and recently has helped bring Texas into the modern era of pay-for-play.

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