Wisconsin football assistant coach profiles: tight ends coach Chris Haering
The Wisconsin Badgers football coaching staff underwent an uncharacteristically high amount of change since the team beat Arizona State in the Las Vegas Bowl on December 30.
With several new coaches on the staff, and multiple retained coaches shifting responsibilities, All Badgers will spend the next week providing an overview of each position coach on head coach Paul Chryst's coaching staff.
Previously covered position coaches:
- Defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard
- Offensive coordinator Bobby Engram
- Cornerbacks coach Hank Poteat
- Offensive line coach Bob Bostad
- Defensive line coach Ross Kolodziej
Next, we focus on new tight ends coach Chris Haering, who oversaw the special teams for seven seasons at Wisconsin.
Name: Chris Haering
Role: Tight ends coach
Hometown: Pueblo, Colorado
Alma mater: University of West Virginia
Years at Wisconsin: Haering is entering his eighth season at Wisconsin, though this season will be his first with the tight ends.
Previous coaching experience: Haering began his coaching career at the high school level. He was the head coach at Mount Lebanon High School in Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2011 before joining Paul Chryst as the linebackers coach at Pittsburgh in 2012. After two years overseeing the linebackers, Haering took over coaching the outside linebackers and the special teams for one season at Pitt.
Haering would follow Chryst to Wisconsin in 2015 and take over as the special teams coach for seven seasons. This past spring, Haering switched to coach the tight ends.
Chris Haering has been a staff member for Paul Chryst at both Pittsburgh and Wisconsin.
Mark Hoffman, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via Imagn Content Services, LLC
Playing career: Chris Haering played in college at the University of West Virginia. He played in 38 games as a linebacker for the Mountaineers from 1986 to 1989 and finished his career with 340 total tackles. Haering also added 11 tackles for loss, three sacks, five interceptions, and forced two fumbles.
He helped lead the Mountaineers to an 11-1 record in 1988, losing only in the Fiesta Bowl to Notre Dame for the National Championship. His best season came as a senior in 1989, when he finished with 185 tackles and tallied a whopping 20 tackles in a single game against Rutgers.
As a recruiter: We will see how his role on the recruiting trail shifts now that he is in charge of a position group, but Haering's primary responsibility since joining the Wisconsin coaching staff in 2015 has been in-state recruiting. As a former high school coach, he has built strong ties with some of the coaches inside the state and has been a big reason for Wisconsin's success recruiting the state under Paul Chryst. The 2022 cycle was a bit of a letdown with three of the top players from Wisconsin leaving the state, but the Badgers have the No. 1 prospect in the 2023 cycle committed and are in a good spot for several key 2024 recruits that Haering is involved with.
Coaching trends: Head coach Paul Chryst made a number of major changes to the coaching staff following last season. One of the biggest was moving away from having a dedicated special teams coach and instead taking a by-committee approach to that facet of the game. Haering coordinated the special teams for seven seasons, but Chryst values his input on the staff and opted to shift him to coach the tight ends in 2022. Overall, results for the special teams unit were uneven under his watch, so it will be interesting to see how he does in this new role.
With the tight end room decimated by injuries in the spring, it was hard to take too much away from Haering and his new position group. He takes over for Mickey Turner, who is now the face of Wisconsin's recruiting efforts. The Badgers are replacing do-it-all tight end, Jake Ferguson, this season, so it will be critical for Haering to develop the young room during fall camp.
2022 is the first time that Haering has coached the tight ends in his college career, but fortunately, both Chryst and offensive coordinator Bobby Engram have extensive experience with the position group to also help.
Three miscellaneous facts:
- Paul Chryst and Chris Haering were graduate assistants at West Virginia together back in 1991.
- Haering won the Louis D. Meisel Award in 1989 at West Virginia, which is annually given to the football player with the highest grade point average on the team.
- While coaching in the high school ranks, Haering won the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League Coach of the Year in 2000.
Related links:
- Wisconsin freshmen expectations and introductions
- 10 players returning from injury for the Wisconsin Badgers
- Assistant coach profiles: defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard
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