Is IU football cursed? Maybe, but we also have a level of incompetency that helps perpetuate any curse. I indicated in the past, my biggest problem is how we handled things after cutting ties with Wilson. Let's face it, with two consecutive bowl appearances, we were at the high water mark for IU football since the 80s and early 90s. This was the time to do a national search and include CTA. A real analysis of our options was warranted (and would have been done by about any other power five team in our shoes). If you don't think that a search was warranted, then tell me this: would we have accepted the same process in basketball? Would we fire a coach and name his assistant as PERMANENT coach within hours thereafter in basketball. Of course not. I know basketball tradition and football tradition are not even close, but, as I said, we were at our high water mark and if you want the program to be relevant you treat it like it is relevant. So we promote an assistant with no HC experience and only 2 years DC experience. IUCOL may be right, this may have been simple economics and if it was, then the President and BOT should be held responsible.
So IU works the hype and all try to fall in behind a staff many are not sure about. Believe me I have tried and continue to try to support the staff. It isn't easy. The administration then continues to make bad decisions relating to the program. We use a good chunk of BIG TEN money for a non-athletic pet project. We may be the only school in the conference that could build an extension to the football facilities and do it in a way that allows other schools to focus on this as THEIR recruiting advantage i.e. no football-only weight room. In reality is the shared weight room a big deal? I don't know, but I do know that it is being used against us in recruiting and in recruiting perception is often reality. I guess if it isn't a big deal we can get rid of the basketball team's weight room.
We don't have fan support and all our woes come back to that. I have heard this for years and I am tired of it. Support comes with performance. If you have average or below average performance, you better make it easy to enjoy the event. Let's see. We have limited discounted tickets and you may buy single games but often there will be no parking. We may park you in a hay field miles away and bus you to the stadium (that will help the tailgating atmosphere) and we don't want you to easily follow the game, so we will remove the names from the uniforms. Why, so we can support this BS motto/concept of one team (which is fairly recent and not part of any true IU tradition). There, those things will help our program
Let's face it, being an IU football fan is tougher than most team allegiances. Even the Cubs were able to provide leadership that gave true hope (and a World Series) not some hyped assertions that don't pay off. Like many, I see no end to the curse/bad management in the immediate future. Maybe I will be wrong and we will pick up two wins and make it to a bowl. I hope so. However, I think it is more likely we pick up one win or none and then have to spend a long off-season living with hype about improvement in recruiting, "new facilities" and "five years is needed to evaluate any staff." We can watch a lot of programs that were a mess, pass us by while we all chant "24 sports , 1 team" and anyone with an objective eye will know that "team" is really one that plays with a round ball and hoop.
So IU works the hype and all try to fall in behind a staff many are not sure about. Believe me I have tried and continue to try to support the staff. It isn't easy. The administration then continues to make bad decisions relating to the program. We use a good chunk of BIG TEN money for a non-athletic pet project. We may be the only school in the conference that could build an extension to the football facilities and do it in a way that allows other schools to focus on this as THEIR recruiting advantage i.e. no football-only weight room. In reality is the shared weight room a big deal? I don't know, but I do know that it is being used against us in recruiting and in recruiting perception is often reality. I guess if it isn't a big deal we can get rid of the basketball team's weight room.
We don't have fan support and all our woes come back to that. I have heard this for years and I am tired of it. Support comes with performance. If you have average or below average performance, you better make it easy to enjoy the event. Let's see. We have limited discounted tickets and you may buy single games but often there will be no parking. We may park you in a hay field miles away and bus you to the stadium (that will help the tailgating atmosphere) and we don't want you to easily follow the game, so we will remove the names from the uniforms. Why, so we can support this BS motto/concept of one team (which is fairly recent and not part of any true IU tradition). There, those things will help our program
Let's face it, being an IU football fan is tougher than most team allegiances. Even the Cubs were able to provide leadership that gave true hope (and a World Series) not some hyped assertions that don't pay off. Like many, I see no end to the curse/bad management in the immediate future. Maybe I will be wrong and we will pick up two wins and make it to a bowl. I hope so. However, I think it is more likely we pick up one win or none and then have to spend a long off-season living with hype about improvement in recruiting, "new facilities" and "five years is needed to evaluate any staff." We can watch a lot of programs that were a mess, pass us by while we all chant "24 sports , 1 team" and anyone with an objective eye will know that "team" is really one that plays with a round ball and hoop.
