The Badgers have an answer to their biggest question.
The Wisconsin Badgers are hiring Kansas Jayhawks offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes as the school’s next offensive coordinator, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.
Sources; Wisconsin is targeting Kansas OC Jeff Grimes as the school’s new offensive coordinator. A deal is not complete, but the sides are talking and those talks are expected to intensity in the near future.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) December 6, 2024
Grimes had been hired to take over as Kansas’s offensive coordinator when Andy Kotelnecki left for the Penn State Nittany Lions, and now another coordinator for the Jayhawks will be moving on to the Big Ten.
He will replace former offensive coordinator Phil Longo, who was fired by the Badgers after just 23 games, and provide a new look to Wisconsin’s offense.
Grimes’s offense at Kansas in 2024 was 47th in the country at 410.9 yards per game, while his group really specialized on the ground with 201.3 yards rushing yards per game, good for 16th in the country.
It was Grimes’s first season at Kansas after a three-year stint at Baylor, where he was a finalist for the Broyles Award in his first year before ultimately getting dismissed by head coach Dave Aranda after the 2023 season.
A coach at the collegiate level since 1995, Grimes has also had stints at BYU (2x), LSU, Virginia Tech, Auburn, Colorado, Arizona State, Hardin-Simmons, Texas A&M, and Rice.
He comes in with an offensive line background, as Grimes was an offensive line coach all the way through 2017 before earning his first stint as an offensive coordinator at BYU. Now at his fourth coordinator job, Grimes fills a big hole on Wisconsin’s staff, answering a major question ahead of the transfer portal window opening on Monday.