Much has been said about Tom Allen's bad hires, but he also had some really talented coaches (most of whom he somehow managed to fail with). Hard to believe he had Alabama's coach, the head coach at Southern Alabama, the safeties coach for Ohio State, North Carolina's secondary coach, Missouri's defensive line coach, Mississipi State's receivers coach, Notre Dame's running back coach, one of the best line coaches of all time in Bob Bostad, the former Head Coach of Northern Illinois, and Michigan State line coach. The two head coaches were the only ones who were good enough to save him, but I think Carey would have saved him if he'd gotten him sooner. Just nuts.
Failing with Good Coaches
- Thread starter MMcCormick
- Start date
As a defensive focused head coach, his make or break hire happened the season before last, when the wheels were starting to fall off - when he needed a home run of an OC. And for that hire he selected Walt Bell.
At least he got $15M to walk away from that error.
At least he got $15M to walk away from that error.
I don't know how much I know about position coaches moving laterally, whether that means they're good. Lots of retreads in the business I think. Lots of very similar teaching approaches.
I do think we had some good ones. I think Rod Carey is good, and a head man candidate for the right place. Another mid-major.
I also was amazed at the time that with his ass on the line Coach Allen hired Coach Bell. But maybe in the long run Coach Bell will show something. I haven't seen it. Coach Cignetti called the offense 'simple', but maybe for some reason Coach Bell has more, but just felt it was better not to implement it. I doubt it but maybe.
I do think we had some good ones. I think Rod Carey is good, and a head man candidate for the right place. Another mid-major.
I also was amazed at the time that with his ass on the line Coach Allen hired Coach Bell. But maybe in the long run Coach Bell will show something. I haven't seen it. Coach Cignetti called the offense 'simple', but maybe for some reason Coach Bell has more, but just felt it was better not to implement it. I doubt it but maybe.
The Bell hire was certainly the final catastrophe. And the crazy part is he that Rod Carey was also applying to be on his staff at that time. If he hires Carey instead of Bell, I think he's got two six win seasons and he's still coaching. Probably better for Indiana that did not happen, but it's an interesting study in failure.
Kevin Peoples who Allen fired just got hired by to be LSU's defensive line coach.
I knew once he hired Walt that it was the beginning of the end for Allen.
Yes and I thought as a D specialist he'd want at least as close to a KW style offense as possible. Cause DeBord has only been a success with high rated talent. He was lost at both CMU and Bloomington.
On a macro level I just never got the sense that Allen was a CEO type that you have to be to run a football program at this level. I would venture to guess that, deep down, he’s relieved that he can just be a coordinator now.
I was a student trainer during early Corso years and he had excellent assistant coaches. Jim Johnson (longtime DC in NFL), Mo Watts (OC at Mich St and LSU), Trent Walters (longtime NFL assistant), Hal Hunter (assistant at LSU), Jim Gruden (assistant at Notre Dame). Corso just didn’t have enough talent to compete with Michigan and OSU during an era where Indiana typically played 3 challenging non-conference games.
Right, & Lee had just arrived in Blmgtn. from Louisville & an undefeated season.
Plenty of good young assistants have gotten their start at struggling programs.
Some of Coach Mac’s first few staffs at CU had Lloyd Carr, Gary Barnett, Dinardo and Lou Tepper. In today’s landscape, Mac probably wouldn’t have made it to year 4. Those early Buff teams were not good at all. Coaches can only do so much.
Dennis Green had some good coaches on staff at NU in the early-80’s too with horrible teams.
Iowa was terrible when Hayden Fry took over. He brought Bill Snyder with him from N. Texas. Kept on Dan McCarney from the previous staff. Bob Elliott, I believe also. Then hired on an unknown HS coach named Barry Alvarez. A few years later, when the program was on better footing, Kirk Ferentz and Bob Stoops joined the staff.
Don’t forget, John Harbaugh in year one of the Cam era was the Special Teams coach.
Some of Coach Mac’s first few staffs at CU had Lloyd Carr, Gary Barnett, Dinardo and Lou Tepper. In today’s landscape, Mac probably wouldn’t have made it to year 4. Those early Buff teams were not good at all. Coaches can only do so much.
Dennis Green had some good coaches on staff at NU in the early-80’s too with horrible teams.
Iowa was terrible when Hayden Fry took over. He brought Bill Snyder with him from N. Texas. Kept on Dan McCarney from the previous staff. Bob Elliott, I believe also. Then hired on an unknown HS coach named Barry Alvarez. A few years later, when the program was on better footing, Kirk Ferentz and Bob Stoops joined the staff.
Don’t forget, John Harbaugh in year one of the Cam era was the Special Teams coach.
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DiNardo had some good coaches on his staff. Didn’t equate to much….but still
Fans need to quit using the past to show Cignetti can't win at IU. He has a lot of experienced and knows how to field winning teams, if IU doesn't win early it is no big deal but don't count on IU losing many games.
I'd amend that to "if IU doesn't win big early it is no big deal". If IU only wins another 3 games next year, I'm going to start questioning Cignetti and his talk. I won't count him out. I'd still give him at least 3 years, so long as he shows marked improvement, but, with a soft schedule next season I have the optimistic expectation of going bowling. Out of conference games need to be guaranteed wins and with multiple scheduled teams in flux this off-season, we need to capitalize on the first year in an expanded B1G.
Just curious, why do you think we have a "soft" schedule next season?
Our 3 OoC teams won 7 games combined. We have 5 conference home games. Chip Kelly is on the hot seat with UCLA having a bad recruiting class and lots of turnover. Maryland will be replacing Taulia and we get them at home. I thought Northwestern would be a gimme next year even at Ryan Field but who knows after this past season. Nebraska at home, coming off a bye, for homecoming, likely with a true freshman QB. Washington team losing their coaching staff and all their productive offense. Michigan State with a new coaching staff. Purdue at home for the bucket.
Of our opponents this season, the only one that might have an easier schedule is Northwestern. Washington (with a Fisch revamped staff), Michigan, and OSU are the only losses I'll chalk up right now. Playing 3 of the top 8 teams is a boon to the schedule, although it would have been nice to match up against Illinois or Minnesota. I like the confidence from Cignetti, that kind of talk is what I want to hear. However, if he talks a big game like this and then falls flat, it's not going to be a very good look.
Sounds great...
What I see is a schedule that has 6, count em, 6 Bowl teams on it; with at least 3 (and probably 4) of whom will be ranked somewhere in the top 20 when we meet them... I don't see that even approaching "soft"...*
*Edited for accuracy (changed 8 Bowl teams to 6) Still stand by my original premise that this schedule is anything but "soft".....
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Are there other B1G team schedules you'd prefer next season? I'm obviously talking about soft compared to other B1G schedules because those are our peers. I'm not out here comparing out schedule to ACC or Big 12 bottom feeders. Why would anyone be talking about how difficult our schedule compares to North Texas or San Jose State?
Also are you talking about bowl teams for the '23 season or '24? Because next years schedule has 6, count em, 6 bowl teams from the '23 season. Personally I can't definitively count things that hasn't happened yet so if you're talking '24 thanks for doing the counting for me.
I see that my error I was confusing Charlotte with Coastal Carolina and counting the National Championship as a Bowl game... May have also misremembered p u beating us at their Toilet bowl as another team with a "bowl" game...
You are correct however, we Only play 6 Bowl teams...
"Soft" isn't a term that comes to mind in regard to this schedule...
Here's who we Do play:
UCLA won the LA Bowl
Washington won the Sugar Bowl
Maryland won the Music City Bowl
Michigan won the Rose Bowl
Ohio State lost the Cotton Bowl
Northwestern won the Las Vegas Bowl
As we all know, Michigan won the National Championship game vs Washington...
Each one of those Bowl teams are 14 practices ahead of us already and in the case of Washington and Michigan, 21... That's quite an edge...
Almost forgot to add:
Washington, Northwestern and Nebraska all have Bye weeks before they play us...
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If a first year coach can go 500 or better with that schedule, he's done one hell of a job.
We only have to look at the past season and losing five close games as an indication that we are not far away. You don't expect to win them all, but three of them would have put us in a bowl.
Ugh, it would count as much as a bowl for us if we had won unfortunately. Needed anything at the end of the season.
Again, I'm comparing us to our B1G peers as that's the teams Indiana vies for standing. I think Rutgers might be the only team I'd want to switch with. Three gimme games and home field advantage for 5 conference games should be bowling.
I love seeing B1G teams winning bowls (though I didn't want cheatin' ass Michigan to win it all) but I'm confident we can compete with bowl teams. Significant role players have stuck around after a year where we lost 5 close games like @hoosier roadtrips said. Practices for bowl games don't sway me much with how much turnover through the portal there is with teams. I'm very excited to hear about what comes out of spring practice; Cignetti needs to put on a spring game and fans need to show up.
We have advantages in playing a heavier home conference schedule, only travel west coast once, and we match byes with Nebraska on homecoming (and one before Ohio State
). Bill Connelly has top 25 hardest 2024 CFB schedules and 6 are B1G, including 5 we play and I know we aren't raising the SoS. Maybe I'm being too generous but I really think with the schedule we have this year that bowling should be the floor especially with the bravado Cignetti is exuding. I want to believe that's the minimum this year and maybe getting myself too high of expectations.I don't want to go into downgrading our own players or Coaches just to win debate points so I'll cut it off here and just say that I'm usually a "glass half full" kind of guy who would much prefer that your evaluation of our upcoming schedule is correct... I have a very different opinion about the difficulty of it but I hope I'm wrong...
I will say that I believe our TEAM has an significant amount of seriously Rough work ahead of them to be able to Win consistently in the Big Ten (as either game W's or individual player on player W's) whether the Conference is up or down...
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I'll believe it when I see it... If we can beat MD, UCLA and Nebraska (in theory "on paper" winnable), and perhaps win a wild one against Washington; then I'll start chugging the Kool-Aide again and maybe even volunteer to pass it out... None of those three teams will be push overs in my opinion...
I will say that I believe our TEAM has an significant amount of seriously Rough work ahead of them to be able to Win consistently in the Big Ten (as either game W's or individual player on player W's) whether the Conference is up or down...
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I'll believe it when I see it... If we can beat MD, UCLA and Nebraska (in theory "on paper" winnable), and perhaps win a wild one against Washington; then I'll start chugging the Kool-Aide again and maybe even volunteer to pass it out... None of those three teams will be push overs in my opinion...
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Johns never worked directly for Tom Allen as HC, correct? If so, it's more accurate to say Johns wasn't retained when CTA was hired as HC. Regardless, in hindsight, not a good decision by CTA.
Except if Allen had kept John’s, then he would have never hired Deboer after firing DeBord and Deboer would never have met Penix and Washington would not have gone to the championship game and then Alabama would not have a new coach. Or something like that.
It is a wonderful life after all
It's fascinating how one act, one decision, one happening can have a chain reaction on so many others. And change lives forever.
I think his use of the word soft is relative. We are in the big ten so every year will have 3 to 4 teams where we are underdogs. We will never have to worry about strength of schedule.
The question is what do our winnable games look like compared to other years and do those winnable games get to be played at home.
Johns coached in the Bowl Game right after TA was named interim. Then was not retained in favor of DeBord when filling out his staff. Considering Johns ended up at Western Michigan the next season, seems likely he would have stayed. Agreed, not a good decision by TA. One of many.
And now Wommack is Bama's DC. God is this starting to look stupid. We could fill out an all star game with ex Indiana coaches.
Don't forget that he had the runner up for the Heisman Trophy.
[QUOTE="76-1, post:
"Each one of those Bowl teams are 14 practices ahead of us already and in the case of Washington and Michigan, 21... "
[/QUOTE]
This is what I would like to see changed. How can a team get better if they keep getting penalized. The rich stay richer. I wish the teams staying home would get some extra practices as well, if they want them. It might not be the right answer but it has always ticked me off that IU didn't get a chance to work on getting better during the long dry spells between Bowls. Let every team practice during Bowl Season if they desire.(Of course our new Coach might not use them or need them... according to his methods.) VBG.
Rant over!
Go Hoosiers!
82
"Each one of those Bowl teams are 14 practices ahead of us already and in the case of Washington and Michigan, 21... "
[/QUOTE]
This is what I would like to see changed. How can a team get better if they keep getting penalized. The rich stay richer. I wish the teams staying home would get some extra practices as well, if they want them. It might not be the right answer but it has always ticked me off that IU didn't get a chance to work on getting better during the long dry spells between Bowls. Let every team practice during Bowl Season if they desire.(Of course our new Coach might not use them or need them... according to his methods.) VBG.
Rant over!
Go Hoosiers!
82
He will get that kind of talent at Alabama year in and year out.
This is what I would like to see changed. How can a team get better if they keep getting penalized. The rich stay richer. I wish the teams staying home would get some extra practices as well, if they want them. It might not be the right answer but it has always ticked me off that IU didn't get a chance to work on getting better during the long dry spells between Bowls. Let every team practice during Bowl Season if they desire.(Of course our new Coach might not use them or need them... according to his methods.) VBG.
Rant over!
Go Hoosiers!
82
[/QUOTE]
In your world everyone gets a trophy.
In your world everyone gets a trophy.
[/QUOTE]
The same things works in Indiana HS football as successful teams get more practices as they advance in the tournament - going to state twice, semi-state, and regionals in five years gave us twenty one extra practices in five years. It is what it is and teams just need to improve enough to gain the extra practices themselves especially in college.
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