Until we pay the assistants enough to stick around the next guy will lose anyone worth keeping.
Did Allen Have a Chance?
- Thread starter IUFan4Lifer
- Start date
He had 7 years of chances.
DeBoer and Wommack both got head coaching gigs. I highly doubt we could have matched their new salaries.
The assistant coach pay wasn't what it needed to be...but it was good enough. His B10 record the last 3 years has been unacceptable. Especially considering how crappy the conference has been behind the top 2-3 teams.
To your point though...Allen's judgement in choosing coordinators the last 3 years is what did him in. And that's a huge part of today's high major coaching equation...the ability to choose and/or attract top level coordinators and position coaches.
Yes, he had a chance. He's the one that held onto Hiller too long. He's the one that hired Walt Bell and retained him into this year.
He's also the guy whose teams looked more prepared before timeouts than after. And whose situational awareness was as bad in year 7 as year 1. We've been bad for 130 years and I loved having a coach who loved the program, but unfortunately a HC he isn't.
Allen made plenty of chances. He was given a long runway, but just made too many bad hires. Hillier, Sheridan (the least bad of the bad), the guy from Georgia, Wilt as DC, Walt Bell (the worst of the terrible hires), Guerreri (the second worst). He also made a couple of great hires Bostad, Deboer, and Rod Carey. The reality is if he had hired Carey instead of Bell, he wins 6 games last year and 6 games this year and has an extension. You just can't miss as many times on coordinators as he did. And in fairness a good AD should have vetoed the Bell and Guerreri hires.
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A million dollars would have made Wommack think long and hard.
Tom had his chance. Too many mistakes. I appreciate his effort but as he said, ‘you get paid to win’. Time to find the right guy finally.
I assumed he was making at least a million down there but guess not. Although getting head coach experience has some added value.
You make a good point about that the AD should have vetoed both of these, especially the Bell hire. I don't remember a hire being as universally thought to be a mistake than that one. There was no defense of that, especially at that time.
I also agree that things would look different had Carey been the OC the past couple years. I don't know what Allen missed out on from limited NIL funds.
I do think Allen had plenty of chances. IU will never have the resources of the top 3 Big Ten east teams but it should be competitive with most of the rest of them. PU, NW, MN, Rutgers - none of them have significant resource advantages.
Maybe, but maybe not. A young guy with ambition to become a head coach is going to be driven by more than money. Wommack had a great opportunity placed in front of him at S. Alabama. In the final analysis, the difference in a pay bump as a DC in the Big Ten vs. a head coaching position at another FBS school probably wasn't going to dissuade him from taking the step up.
I think IU football fans are pretty realistic when it comes to program success.
We are not asking for a top 5 or top 10 program. We are asking for top 50 offenses and defenses though. That comes with solid coaching and big10 level talent. As others mentioned, Allen couldn't hire solid coaches often enough.
We are not asking for a top 5 or top 10 program. We are asking for top 50 offenses and defenses though. That comes with solid coaching and big10 level talent. As others mentioned, Allen couldn't hire solid coaches often enough.
Some hires an AD would have a tough time evaluating. Sheridan for instance. You just wanted to keep a good thing going. You can understand that hire. But Bell was so obviously a bad hire. And at a time that we badly needed a good DC he hired one who ran his last team into the ground. A good AD should have said said "find me somebody with a track record of success." Most of the bad hires had either no experience as Coordinators or track records of failure.
I'm so tired of this narrative that CTA was hamstrung by lack of funds for assistants.
Let's look at some actual data instead of continuously perpetuating these inaccuracies.
This site provides the best coaching salary data I could find.
sports.usatoday.com
Per this site, we paid our assistants more than Minnesota, and about the same as Purdue, Maryland and Rutgers.
We are within $500k of Wisconsin, $600k of Nebraska and $800k of Illinois. (These are all newer coaching staffs so it makes sense they are paid more)
Michigan, Iowa, Michigan State, and OSU pay significantly more. There is no data for PSU and Northwestern.
Bottom line - our assistant salaries were competitive with our peers in the B1G. They were certainly close enough to expect better results than we got these past 3 years!
Let's look at some actual data instead of continuously perpetuating these inaccuracies.
This site provides the best coaching salary data I could find.
College Football Strength Coach Salaries - USA TODAY
Ever wondered who the highest paid strength coach in college football is? Find out today with USA TODAY's complete salary data.
sports.usatoday.com
Per this site, we paid our assistants more than Minnesota, and about the same as Purdue, Maryland and Rutgers.
We are within $500k of Wisconsin, $600k of Nebraska and $800k of Illinois. (These are all newer coaching staffs so it makes sense they are paid more)
Michigan, Iowa, Michigan State, and OSU pay significantly more. There is no data for PSU and Northwestern.
Bottom line - our assistant salaries were competitive with our peers in the B1G. They were certainly close enough to expect better results than we got these past 3 years!
It's clear any coach has an uphill climb with a fairly amateurish athletic department. At least in football. But, some signs are that part of the sitch may be improving a little.
Allen wasnt up to running a big time program. He did some things well. He recruited OK. IU needs elite coaches though. He wasnt close to that.
Allen wasnt up to running a big time program. He did some things well. He recruited OK. IU needs elite coaches though. He wasnt close to that.
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