BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. – John Torchio couldn’t resist playfully teasing his all-in-one position coach-defensive coordinator-interim head coach. At Tuesday’s practice, the UW safety didn’t notice anything different about Jim Leonhard – “He was completely normal” – except for one thing. The whistle.
“He never has a whistle out here,” laughed Torchio, who needled Leonhard about it.
Leonhard later conceded, “Obviously a unique week here with Wisconsin football.”
Torchio and Leonhard have a unique connection dating to when Torchio attended a UW summer camp, met Leonhard and learned of his story as one of the most celebrated walk-ons in school history. A roadside billboard in Leonhard’s hometown (Tony, Wis.) spotlights the feat: “Walk-on to All-American.”
Leonhard’s presence as the defensive coordinator and secondary coach was one of the factors in Torchio turning down a scholarship offer to the University of California – 20 minutes from his home and where both his dad and grandfather played quarterback – to walk-on at Wisconsin, Class of 2018.
Torchio heard good things about a UW education and the Madison campus from his older sister, Katherine, a Badger soccer player (2015-2018). He came on a visit to see for himself and was able to touch base with former inside linebacker Jack Cichy, the author of another walk-on success story.
“Seeing what this place was about and the walk-on history, I knew I’d have a chance,” said Torchio, a three-sport star in Moraga, Calif. “I knew they treated walk-ons fairly and gave them a chance. I wanted to make a name for myself. I wanted to be here. It felt right. Trust my gut.”
He got that advice from his dad. Trust your gut. That’s what J Torchio did by walking on to California in the early ’80s. A backup QB, he had his one shining moment, too. Subbing for starter Rich Campbell (a No. 1 pick of the Packers), he led the Bears to a win over Stanford and John Elway.
“There was zero pressure from my dad to go to Cal,” Torchio recalled. “My dad was really good about that. Honestly, behind closed doors, my dad would have probably said that he wanted me to come here. He wanted me to do what felt best and he could tell that I thought here was best.”
Leonhard shared his pride in the UW’s walk-on tradition and how it’s “close to my heart.”
As a coach, he said, “You appreciate guys who take a chance on themselves. It means a lot to me. You see guys that truly have confidence in their ability. They understand their role is to go out and prove it every day. Do whatever it takes to take that next step, whatever it takes to help the team.
“It’s just really cool to see how the team embraces that group of guys (walk-ons) in the locker room. They don’t see them as different. Half the time our guys don’t even know. They don’t know if they’re on scholarship or not. They truly don’t care. It’s how hard are you going to work?”
Torchio knew that he had his work cut out for him to earn a scholarship. “It was absolutely on my mind – that was my goal – to get the scholarship,” he said. “At a certain point, I thought, ‘I’ve got to stop worrying about this. I’ve just got to go out and play football. It will come when it comes.'”
Last Friday, it was officially announced that Torchio was the inaugural recipient of the Father Mike Burke walk-on scholarship. Endowed by former walk-ons, it bridges multiple generations of Badger football, while honoring the memory of the late team chaplain, mentor and Holy Name Seminary rector.
After meeting the players who returned for the endowment luncheon, Torchio said, “It’s like a brotherhood of Wisconsin football to be honest. It made me think, ‘Wow, this program is way bigger than me.’ All these traditions have been around for so long. To be a part of it is cool.”
Like so many walk-ons, Torchio had to figure out his own recipe for getting on the field. “It was my ability to make plays, be in the right spot and know the playbook,” he said. “When I was younger, I kind of got thrown in there and I stuck because I was ready to go with the X’s and O’s.”
Torchio’s first career start came against Northwestern, the opponent Saturday in Evanston. After targeting fouls on safeties Eric Burrell and Reggie Pearson in the 2019 Michigan game the week before, Torchio was elevated to the lineup. Since then, he has been contributing as a sub or starter.
In the 2022 opener, he had a school-record 100-yard interception return. Along with being the defense’s second-leading tackler, including a team-high 13 solos, he now has six career picks and the best nickname in the Big Ten, the “Jewelry Thief.” A testament to his crafty and deceptive ball skills.
As a senior at Campolindo High School, he was a dual-threat quarterback. “It’s definitely helped knowing tendencies and what the quarterback may be thinking,” he said. “I also credit coach Leonhard for that a lot. In film, he does a good job of saying, ‘What’s this guy thinking? Who’s he reading first?'”
What was he thinking after Tuesday’s practice? It was Leonhard’s first as interim head coach.
“He’s still the same guy, he’s still my position coach, he’s still the DC,” Torchio said. “I think a lot of guys have a heavy heart for what happened. And he talked about how we have to compartmentalize our emotions because we still have a game on Saturday … I’m confident in him taking over.
“But if you’d ask every player on this team, this is still coach Chryst’s team. Coach Leonhard is the interim coach and we respect him as the head coach. But I think everyone would say no matter what we do this year, this is coach Chryst’s team until the end of the year. Coach Leonhard even said that.”
During Sunday’s team meeting, revealing Chryst’s exit, Torchio struggled to find the right words.
“We kind of split into positions and I broke it down,” he said. “I didn’t even know what to say. I’ve never been through this. None of us have, right? I just kind of offered up a hand and said, ‘If you want to reach out, if you’ve got something to say, talk to me or talk to some of the other guys.’
“And then I said, ‘We have a ‘Why’ now. We have something to play for now. We’ve got to prove it to people.’ That was kind of my message to the DB’s. As an older guy, you definitely feel responsible to rally everyone together. We’re all navigating something none of us has experienced.”
Leonhard could relate. And said so Tuesday during nearly a 28-minute press conference. He addressed the emotions of the players, and coaching staff. “We’re all here because of what Paul Chryst had done and the trust that he had in us,” he said. “So, it was very emotional on our floor as well …
“I guess my message to the team, starting yesterday, was … Let it settle in. Get out of the building a little bit. Let it hurt. I brought them back (Monday) in the morning for a team workout. I wanted to look at them all in the eyes at the same time.”
He proceeded to advise them, “A big lesson that we have to learn is how to compartmentalize the emotion of it. Not trying to brush it aside, not trying to make it go away. But we have to be able to focus …We have to learn the lesson of turning on and off the emotion, which is a huge lesson.”
Defining the task of compartmentalization in his own context, the 23-year-old Torchio said, “No matter how you feel emotionally about what happened, you have to come out here and still execute your job and play football. That’s what it means to me.
“No matter how I feel – happy, sad, disappointed, all those emotions – when we’re out here, we’re playing football and nothing changes.” After Tuesday’s practice, he observed, “The defense was focused. You can be focused all week but if you don’t apply it in the game, it doesn’t matter.
“Saturday will be the true test. But I liked what I saw today. We have something to play for.”
Torchio wanted to clarify something. After the disappointing Illinois loss, he told the assembled media corps, “I don’t worry about the program as a whole, I worry about the defense and the secondary. That’s what I need to control, and I think that’s the message for the whole team.
“We need to worry about ourselves, we need to control what we can control. I told the DB’s, ‘This is a pride thing. You need to look at yourself in the mirror. Something is off. Is it you? If it’s you, what do we need to change?’ That’s everyone, myself included. That’s kind of the approach I’m taking.”
It didn’t necessarily come out that way on some platforms. “I was talking about the players, I wasn’t talking about something in the program needs to change,” he said. “I was talking about the players because it falls on us. I can only speak to the defense. But we have to execute.
“We’re not playing up to standards … It needs to change with us players.”
On Tuesday, he said, “I still stand by that. Something does have to change with the players.”
Trust your gut. Like Torchio plans on playing, and Leonhard plans on coaching at Northwestern.