Archie’s hire ended up being a bad hire. Woodson was a bad hire period. Crean has been the best out of the three, which is frightening. Sampson would have been a monster if not for his stupidity. Davis is probably my personal favorite simply because he navigated through hell due to the situation. Just think how many terrific coaches slipped away during years of ineptitude. Of all the coaches hired, there’s no one who inspires. It’s little wonder Indiana kids are dressed predominantly in Purdue gear.
Archie’s hire ended up being a bad hire. Woodson was a bad hire period. Crean has been the best out of the three, which is frightening. Sampson would have been a monster if not for his stupidity. Davis is probably my personal favorite simply because he navigated through hell due to the situation. Just think how many terrific coaches slipped away during years of ineptitude. Of all the coaches hired, there’s no one who inspires. It’s little wonder Indiana kids are dressed predominantly in Purdue gear.
To be fair, I don't think you can totally say that Woodson was a bad hire in the middle of the year. Lots of RMK's teams looked pretty awful at points in the year and righted themselves. The Nebraska loss was jarringly bad, but this team is certainly capable of turning around and playing well against OSU.
But for the people who want black-and-white answers about "how long should Woody get?" There is no correct answer, because the only correct answer is "it depends."
It depends on how the program is trending. Someone else brought up Danny Hurly in an earlier post. He took over UCONN after Kevin Ollie got in trouble with the NCAA and UCONN had to forfeit all of their games from like 2 seasons, I think. They were Level 1 violations from Ollie. So he came into a tough situation.
He went 16-17 and 19-12 in his first two years in the league, with no post season. To be honest, I don't even know if they were allowed to play post season games in that second year, even if they had qualified.
Then the next two years, he went 15-8 and 23-10, and got knocked out very early in the NCAA tourney. Throwing out the shortened Covid year, because it was shortened and an anomaly, his teams had a better record every single year. He showed progress.
Then, finally, in year five, he won the title.
Now, would his fans have been happy getting knocked out of the tournament in the first round two years in a row? Of course not. But the record improved every year. His recruiting was improving and he was obviously showing progress and trending up.
I think that's what people are looking for from Woody most of all. Progress.