Paul Chryst, the Wisconsin coach who was fired Sunday night, won 72 percent of his games.

It didn’t matter.

As recently as 2019, he had the Badgers in the Rose Bowl.

It didn’t matter.

Just a year ago, almost to the day, it became public that he had earned a $1 million annual raise and would be owed a buyout just shy of $20 million if he were fired in 2022. 

It didn’t matter. 

At the first sign of real trouble for Wisconsin’s program in a long time, the school looked at where it was, where things were headed under Chryst and what its other options might be and told him thank you for your service. And the crazy part is, given the current environment of college football, they might not have even been wrong to do it.

Compared with the $95 million guaranteed contracts Michigan State handed to Mel Tucker and Texas A&M invested in Jimbo Fisher — deals that look like really bad business just a year later — Wisconsin got off cheaply. We can argue about Chryst’s record or whether he quote-unquote deserved to get fired, but this is the new normal.

For the amount of money schools are paying, they want year after year results. And it does not seem like there’s a limit to what they’ll spend to get rid of a coach they no longer want.