Turn Out the Lights, the Party's Over!
- Thread starter HoosierJimbo89
- Start date
He really, really needs to take Glass with him. I don't want Glass who is a special needs AD at best picking the new coach.
Another great reason to fire him now. Tom Jurich at UL doesn't hire consultants. If you work in the white collared world, you'd know that "consultants" rarely know their arse from a hole in the wall but they are paid very well anyway
IU has done nothing in basketball or football since Glass has been here, and he screwed the pooch on Tracy Smith. IU can do better.
I agree I am done with Crean, but let's see how this plays out with our new basketball coaching hire. Fred came in in 2008? He hired Wilson who has made us respectable in football's toughest NCAA division. We are a tough team to play and not an easy win like it use to be. Also back to back bowl games. I think Coach Allen is great fit for Indiana. The baseball stadium is awesome and no coach in the B1G is going to turn down the Arizona State baseball coaching job. The football stadium and basketball arena improvements are also very impressive. Fred has done some good things, but I will say if he messes up this basketball coaching hire, I say send him out of town on a rail.
Yes, we know that Glass can be involved in construction projects -- literal engineering projects. Good for him. He used the money from the BIG network that pours into the athletic dept and has improved facilities. And no one has ever questioned whether he's adept at being a fundraiser -- he's connected in the Indianapolis business scene. That's great.
Now let's look at his recent handling of the "big 3" actual sports programs at IU recently.
Baseball: Tracy Smith moves on. FG hires Chris Lemonis -- a coach with ZERO head coaching experience. He promptly goes 35-24 in his first year (after a 42-13 record in Smith's last year). Then he went 32-24 in 2016 and is something like 4-6-1 this year. Is the program moving upward?
Football: Wilson goes to 2 straight bowls and has close losses against some very good teams. Program seems to have some momentum. FG gives Wilson an extension. Then fires Wilson and quickly hires Tom Allen -- a coach whose only head coaching experience was at Ben Davis high school.
Basketball: FG gives Crean unnecessary (and very one-sided) extension after a trip to the sweet 16 (and double-figure loss) to Kentucky. Extremely inconsistent results follow. 2013 go to sweet 16 again as no 1 seed and lose badly to Syracuse (a common theme as the team never comes close to getting past sweet 16 under Crean). Miss the tourney in 2014. Finish .500 in the conference in 2015 and lose early in the NCAA tournament the next year. 2016 lose badly in the sweet 16 to NC. 2017 lose badly in the NIT.
And how about his handling of the NIT? The guy is an attorney. And he's doing a horrible job representing his client right now. First IU didn't host the NIT due to "renovations" at SS Assembly Hall. Then the rationale for not hosting was due to "students being on spring break." Then the reason was changed in an interview with Kent Sterling and he argued that IU didn't host the GT game due to the possibility of it "devaluing" SS Assembly Hall.
Really? IU has hosted awful no-name teams at home for years (and in large quantities in recent years). He didn't want the empty seats and apathy towards the program broadcast on ESPN for the nation to see. But the apathy and discontent among the fan base is due to his lack of firing decisions, so...
It's embarrassing that this man is the face of IU Athletics right now.
Last edited:
