Leadership can certainly be developed, but it does require humility. In other words, CKW had no chance.
Allen bashing continuing...Please enough!
- Thread starter IndyIUFan66
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Well this thread has had a long and winding road...Anyways I was just messing with ya and hoping for some laughs
That's fair, but where do you have doubts? I guess you'll bring up things like hiring DeBoard. I don't want to get in to in to whether it was a good hire or not in hindsight. But at the time, it was a solid hire. Lots of experience overall, and in the system Allen wants to run. Offense was successful at Tennessee, experience at big-time schools. etc., etc. etc.
Remember that Allen is a guy who turned around a moribund defense in one year. That tells me he has the ability to get it done on a larger scale. And yes, being the head guy is different than being a coordinator - I get that. But he brings energy, excitement, and enthusiasm, and I think those traits attract football players to your school. Lots of people here think Glass hired Allen because he came cheap. I don't think so. I think in the year CTA was coordinator, Glass saw the type of leader he wants running the football program already here, and found an opportunity to keep him here before he left for greener pastures. That he could be hired at a lower cost was an added benefit. My hope is I'm right, and CTA is the guy we've been looking for to lead this program to new heights - and Glass will have to pony up to keep him here in the near future.
I hope it costs us a freaking fortune to keep him.
We were totally unprepared for the Maryland and Purdue games and struggled against Illinois. That to me indicates bad coaching.
How were we totally unprepared? Because we got beat by a team we were favored to beat? I know it sounds trite, but their players are on scholarship too. I agree those were disappointing losses - Maryland the most to me because defense and special teams lost that game when we had them by the throat. We should have beat them as soundly as we beat Rutgers.
But I don't think they were unprepared either. Every coach and program has disappointing losses - that's why you play the game.
And I don't mind your contrary opinion - that's what makes it fun to come to the board. We're not a bunch of lemmings after all.
It shouldn't be lost that Maryland/Illinois/Purdue were also all road games, and isn't necessarily a surprise those were our worst performances of the year - never easy to win on the road in the B1G.
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"Totally unprepared" is a layman's term that means nothing except as uninformed opinion. Unless you were sitting in the meeting rooms game planning with the staff and standing on the practice fields those weeks you have no idea if we were or were not "unprepared". It just "felt like we looked unprepared" to you, someone with no expertise at all. In both of those games we failed to execute in critical situations. That might be because we did not adequately prepare for those situations, or it might be (and this is much more likely the case) that we had players miss assignments and fail to execute.
Both of Illinois scoring plays were big plays on busted assignments. Otherwise our defense dominated that game. Unfortunately, our O-line play didn't give us enough to bust that game open as we should have. The Maryland game was lost on special teams blunders which are almost always execution errors.
I will give you that we lacked fire at Purdue and that was disappointing to me. I have no idea if that was on the coaches or if that was players not properly preparing to play. Allen took responsibility for that, even though I'm sure player preparedness and execution issues were easily discovered in film review. But apart from that game (and I know that was THE most critical game) I never felt that we once hit the field this year not ready to compete. If I saw that we were consistently struggling to compete, I might agree with you. But I didn't see anything close to that.
Indiana lost the Maryland game due to scheduling, it's that simple. Indiana was forced to travel out to the East coast and they ran out of gas after halftime. That happens when you play a conference schedule that is borderline criminal.
Now the Purdue game is slightly different. Although I feel like IU was physically and mentally shot heading to Purdue, Allen was severely outcoached by Jeff Brohm. IU had dominated Rutgers the week before, so I'm not certain they were shot?? I think coaching issues reared their ugly head in the Purdue game. Brohm has the look and feel, at least early on, of an elite coach...let's hope Louisville throws some money at him. Many here choose to see further evidence, I've seen enough, he's a winner.
Allen has done very well recruiting, he now must parlay that into a successful spring practice/camp. He responded very well considering the Purdue loss to end the year.
Now the Purdue game is slightly different. Although I feel like IU was physically and mentally shot heading to Purdue, Allen was severely outcoached by Jeff Brohm. IU had dominated Rutgers the week before, so I'm not certain they were shot?? I think coaching issues reared their ugly head in the Purdue game. Brohm has the look and feel, at least early on, of an elite coach...let's hope Louisville throws some money at him. Many here choose to see further evidence, I've seen enough, he's a winner.
Allen has done very well recruiting, he now must parlay that into a successful spring practice/camp. He responded very well considering the Purdue loss to end the year.
I wouldn't say that Allen was severely out-coached. I think the 2017 game had the same "feel" to the 2016 game, and those 2 games had 4 completely different head coaches. In both games, early turnovers/mistakes essentially killed any potential IU momentum/advantage. I mean it was a near identical start - Lagow throws a pick on the first possession inside the 5 and Purdue scores on the next play. In both games, the home team then caught a few more breaks and carried that to a win.
I agree with you Cougar except that we IU fans have a unique skill set concerning critique of teams. I mean, we HAVE seen unprepared before at IU more than once. As recently as the CKW years particularly on defense early on.
All that said, I didn’t see us as unprepared. The Purdue game was a rivalry game between two teams that matched up well together. IU struggled running the ball all year it showed in this game. We couldn’t afford to have the start we did with hopes to coming out with a win. Maryland the team played well I thought. We made a few mistakes and we didn’t have the ability to over come them....
Its year #2 of a new staff in the B10 East, if we win 7 regular season games next year CTA should be in the running for HC of the Year. IU has nothing compared to the 3 schools you mentioned, but what does that matter?? Is that his fault? What are we in line to capitalize on?? A new QB? A better O-line? A LOT of new starters on defense? Why should we just show up and expect to win 6 games or else?
I don't know how anyone can throw expectations out for next year with all the change going on.
What about the games that we played close games with, the big time program teams? Did the staff just happen to get it right?
We lost those games though. We had a six point lead against Michigan State in the fourth quarter and wilted down the stretch.
So what is your point?? If IU with the lowest paid coach in the B10 fails to have a winning record in what many consider the toughest conference in the country, from rising from a doormat program to an almost average program, does not have a 7 win season, WHAT DO YOU DO?????
Your bitch is not with Coach Allen and the football program, it is with Glass, just say it and be done. We all agree to some extent.
If you have 14 sales people who work on commission based on their rank, why would you expect #14 to beat 14-7??????
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I’d say that any time you lose you didn’t get it right. Year 2 will say something about Allen, but I am more so willing to give him time unless I see clear signs that he can’t coach. The fact that the team was close, shows that they made too many mistakes to win, so obviously the coaching and playing wasn’t good enough. So to answer your question, it wasn’t good enough because they lost the games.
With that being said, Allen seems to be different from CKW in that he seems to have a more positive approach, and takes losing as a learning experience. He’s the kind of guy who will say, “well we learned how not to beat Michigan, and here’s what we need to do to win against Michigan.” That’s something that CKW struggled to grasp, which is why year after year CKW made some of the same coaching errors that frustrated fans, and until Allen came, the defense couldn’t get figured out. Again, that’s not to bash CKW and I’m honestly only using him to illustrate the difference between he and CTA. I could care less about a CKW bashing session, and am only using him to illustrate one of CTA’s stregths.
My response was about the team being prepared for games, not the winning and losing.
I think your comparison of KW and TA seems likely.
In regards to the 3 schools I mentioned we compete against those schools every year thats why it matters unless you have already accepted that we will never beat them and be in the running.
We are in line to capitalize on the facilities upgrade in regards to recruiting. You obviously jumped in this thread late. There has been a lot of discussion. if you look at most schools that get new facilities the recruiting seems to get an instant boost.
As far as the winning 6 games...We play 3 ooc next year which are winnable and 9 conference games. So are you telling me we should not expect to go at least 3-6 in conference? Those are pretty low expectations to get to a bowl and at least keep recruits feeling that CTA is making progress.
The change thats going on is a direct result of us failing greatly in the 4th quarter of games last year. We were almost last in scoring defense and scoring offense in the 4th quarter. Bring on Coach Ballou.
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