Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald had the same reaction as the rest of the college football world when he heard that Paul Chryst was fired as the head coach at Wisconsin on Sunday.

“I was shocked,” said Fitzgerald the day after. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

But unlike anyone else in the sport, Fitzgerald has to prepare to play Chryst’s ex-team on Saturday at Ryan Field.

The Badgers will be coached by their former defensive coordinator, Jim Leonhard. He doesn’t have much time to implement too many changes, but it still throws a wrench in Fitzgerald’s preparation this week.

Fitzgerald is no longer preparing for an eighth game against a coach he knew inside and out, but a first one against a man coaching in his first.

Preparing to play teams with new coaches is nothing new for Fitzgerald and the Wildcats. They faced new offensive coordinator Mark Whipple in the opener against Nebraska, and then new head coach Mike Elko in Week 2 against Duke. Last year, they faced two new head coaches in the first four weeks of the season.

Fitzgerald said the key is preparing for Wisconsin like they would have before Chryst’s ouster. Then, on top of that, they will get ready for any little schematic changes that Leonhard might employ. They have to try to expect the unexpected and have a Plan B ready to go if they see something different.

“No. 1, you’ve got to trust what you see and prepare for what you’ve seen not only this year on tape, but then we go back through our historical studies getting ready for our opponent in all three phases…” he said. “You have to approach any type of twists and changes like this, a little bit like the opener, where you anticipate just having to adjust in-game. If there’s things that maybe we didn’t scout and things that weren’t on tape and all of a sudden there’s a little new wrinkle or a little nuance, just adjust with poise and make the corrections and adjustments and learn as the game goes on.”

Still, while Wisconsin will likely show some new looks, Fitzgerald has a lot of historical data to fall back on. Northwestern has played its Big Ten West foe every year since 2013. This will be the 13th time he’s coached against them in his 17-year career.

There will likely be a few things he doesn’t expect on Saturday, there will be a lot more that he does.

“You can hang your hat on physicality and toughness and downhill run and play-action pass and a mixture of four-down and odd package and a really sophisticated pressure package and multiple coverages and really sound kick game and really talented players that are tough and physical and have great pride in the Wisconsin program,” said Fitzgerald.

In other words, Badger Ball. Wisconsin isn’t going to suddenly spread the field with five wide receivers.

Fitzgerald called Chryst “an outstanding coach” and “someone I have the utmost respect for.” For good reason.

In eight years at Wisconsin, Chryst won 72% of his games overall and 70% of his Big Ten games. He went 6-1 in bowls, the best winning percentage in Badger history. He also won four of seven matchups against Fitzgerald.

While those numbers are impressive, and far better than Fitzgerald’s across the board, college football is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately type of business. And this season, the Badgers have been a disappointment, losing all three of their games against FBS schools. They lost at home to 17.5-point underdog Washington State, and got beat by 31 at Ohio State.

But what finally crucified Chryst was last weekend’s ugly 34-10 home loss to Illinois. Not only because of the scoreboard, but because the coach who beat him was former Wisconsin head man Bret Bielema. His Illini team went into Madison and beat the Badgers at their own game, outrushing them 137 yards to two. (Yes, two.)

Northwestern and Wisconsin have split their 16 meetings this century. Just five of the 16 games were decided by a single score, but Fitzgerald says the outcome usually comes down to one thing.

“Whoever wins the turnover battle in this game usually puts themselves in the best position to win this game,” he said.

So does home-field advantage. The home team is 13-3 in this series over the last 21 years. Northwestern is 6-1 against Wisconsin in Evanston since 2000, and the Badgers are 7-2 against the Wildcats in Madison.

That may turn out to be a bigger factor than any wrinkles Leonhard is able to throw at Fitzgerald on Saturday.