Jim Leonhard may have a different title now but he’ll continue on with one of his most important duties this Saturday against Northwestern.

The Wisconsin interim coach told reporters Thursday he intends to call the defensive signals vs the Wildcats, just like he has since he took over as the Badgers defensive coordinator in 2017.

“Defensively, we’re planning on being able to remain consistent,” Leonhard said of all the coaches keeping their same responsibilities. “We’ve had a lot of conversations of if things go awry on game day, and I don’t feel like I can handle it, how we will handle that. But I feel confident and comfortable of the plan that we have going forward.”

Helping Leonhard and the Badgers is the familiarity with the opponent.

“Obviously, it’s nice that it’s an opponent that we play every year,” Leonhard said. “It’s a Big Ten West opponent, so the prep is kind of consistent.”

Game planning on the offensive side has been different this week due to the departure of head coach Paul Chryst. He had a heavy presence in building what the offense would do each week, which has now been left to offensive coordinator Bobby Engram and offensive line coach/run-game coordinator Bob Bostad.

“I have a lot of confidence in that group,” Leonhard said. “The biggest thing, the only thing I really ask is, how do we make our playmakers dynamic? And what does that look like? Sit down in the room and figure it out. I got a lot of confidence that we’re gonna get that done.”

Injury update

Wisconsin is very banged up and will be without its top two tight ends Saturday in Clay Cundiff (leg) and Hayden Rucci (ankle/foot). Leonhard said running back Isaac Guerendo (ankle) and wide receiver Keontez Lewis (knee) have a chance to play, while cornerback Alexander Smith is trending towards playing after missing the first five games with a hamstring injury.

“We have a lot of guys banged up, we have injuries but nobody cares,” Leonhard said. “We got to go out there and execute on game day.”