Still don't understand how we have such a great weight training program and yet both lines get pushed all over the field
What should be done
- Thread starter IUNorth
- Start date
I don't know if Whitten will go into the books as a good president, but she does care more about sports than McRobbie did (which was not at all). So there's that. But I don't think she or the Trustees have a goal to remake IU into "Sports University." You can read the 2030 strategic plan. https://strategicplan.iu.edu/ There's not one word in it about the Football program.
Your plan is a fun daydream, but not seeing that it will be more than that.
Oh I know...just offering an alternative way to look at building our football program. Because the traditional way hasn't worked for us.
Well, I don't think having one of the largest, newest, and best weight rooms in the nation (Alabama and others came to check out our facility) has helped us recruit that great, do you?
How did Northwestern win while having the worst facilities in the B1G - and the nation?
They figured out how to win. We obviously haven't figured that out yet.
DANC, I'm saying fb players looking at the woman's volleyball team working out is probably our only recruiting advantage.
maybe that's why they're walling off the football weight room. too many distractions? wink wink nudge nudge
As long as Indiana has the same people in charge at the top levels making the decisions, if and when we fire Allen, it's always going to be one big revolving door because Indiana doesn't care about football at the highest levels.
We can blame Dolson all we want, but he has bosses he has to report to. He can't go off and do whatever he wants. He has a budget he has to stick to. Facilities are built largely by donors, which whether fans realize it, we don't have for football. NIL, yeah, it's there for basketball, football, not so much.
Until the school starts to change its line of thinking, we're going to be in this continuous rut.
We can blame Dolson all we want, but he has bosses he has to report to. He can't go off and do whatever he wants. He has a budget he has to stick to. Facilities are built largely by donors, which whether fans realize it, we don't have for football. NIL, yeah, it's there for basketball, football, not so much.
Until the school starts to change its line of thinking, we're going to be in this continuous rut.
Isn’t that what Arizona State did a few years back? 🥴
Hire the best DC for $4M, hire the best OC for $4M. No head coach.
IU will always be stuck in this head coach cycle....binge & purge.
The best teams have the best coordinators and the best talent....i'd start with the coordinators.
What do we have to lose? We could only go up from here.
IU will always be stuck in this head coach cycle....binge & purge.
The best teams have the best coordinators and the best talent....i'd start with the coordinators.
What do we have to lose? We could only go up from here.
You have to have an AD who both knows and prioritizes football. We don’t have that and, while I think Dolson genuinely cares, he’s got zero experience and / or expertise in this area, and it shows. So, you’re, right. Until we install a qualified leader and empower them appropriately, positive change will be accidental and short-lived.
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4 out of the last 6 ADs we've had (including an interim) were all iu guys. the other 2 actually prioritized football and got canned in short order
Perhaps she attends our football games to give the illusion of caring when in her heart she really doesn’t. Image is everything, thus new employees usually try harder to establish a positive image. Is she spending the majority of her stadium time head bowed in reverence to her cell phone? Did she stay until the bittersweet end to the Akron game or did she much earlier quietly disappear after dabbing tears of boredom from her bloodshot eyes?
Me thinks the BOT and the big money doners don't care about IU football. In fact, if truth be known they're probably reversible jacket fans
It's not just a matter of understanding football. The athletic director has to be able to understand entertainment. Does anybody care about the big flagpole? How about the Rock? How about the walk? How about suites in the back of the end zone?
There is nothing in the Bloomington water supply that's suppresses the desire to watch football. But attendance has always been poor and people file out of the game at halftime. This is something else at the athletic director has to be able to tackle.
Don't get me started about the halftime shows.
There is nothing in the Bloomington water supply that's suppresses the desire to watch football. But attendance has always been poor and people file out of the game at halftime. This is something else at the athletic director has to be able to tackle.
Don't get me started about the halftime shows.
The thing of it is, the performance on the field is supposed to be the entertainment during game in progress. I think the games they play with students is a stupid distraction. If this is what youth of today demand for additional entertainment, it is a sad statement for our product on the field and for their general mentality. I like the flagpole because it is real big and flaps in the breeze as breeze cometh. “The Walk” I’ve never seen but would probably know if I saw it. The rock I’ve seen and it’s solid. People in the end zone suites aren’t there to have a nice view of the game. They are there for the social event and for the prestige, real or imagined, that comes with experiencing this field level novelty. True fans probably only do it once, once being enough.
The stadium seats are so uncomfortable, who wouldn’t want to stretch their legs, lighten the ass and pass some gas out in the busy concourse, a great place to people-watch with sights to see at the place to be. “Ain’t nobody got time for ‘dat halftime show!”
Our team needs to be more competitive against the competition, winning more games along the way. For fans this will improve the game day experience more than anything else.
I thought my seat was very comfortable when I was watching John Mellencamp at the Pink Houses concert or when Indiana was playing well. But you make a good point.
Of course it would be helpful if there were more opportunities at football games for the fans to stand up and cheer
They have a 5-9th place basketball program to get juiced about! They are busy!
For me the key is that it begs the question “why DON’T they care about football?” and I fear the simplistic but accurate answer is BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE TO.
I haven’t seen a list of what, over the years, have been the actual benchmarks used for performance evaluations of IU’s Athletic Directors by the people who hired and supervised them. But it’s abundantly clear to me that fielding and sustaining a consistently successful, truly competitive football program is not one of those benchmarks-at least, not operationally.
It also appears that the BOT has electorally survived multiple attempts at being replaced by more “pro-football” candidates.
Until or unless the people with the power and resources to change IU’s football culture begin to suffer some costs and consequences for not doing so, I expect their lack of caring about the program to continue.
Those consequences are coming when IU’s share of the Big Ten Network money is reduced. IU is a leech and the other schools that take football seriously are generating the revenue.
A little over-dramatic, don't you think? Have you seen what other B1G schools are doing, other than O$U, PSU, and Michigan? Maryland has improved, but the rest of the B1G sucks almost as bad as we do.
At least a team we played pretty even - Louisville - has proved to be a lot better than we thought they were.
We're not leeching anything - we prop up B1G TV ratings during basketball season and our Olympic sports are more than just competitive in the conference.
It's much more complicated than it was 40 years ago. I imagine that most Hoosier fanatic fans have at least a 40 inch television that provides multiple camera angles and speeds of virtually every play. And not only that when the game is out of reach one can change the channel at will.
Indiana's attendance is a catch-22. They need to pack the stadium. But that's not going to happen anytime soon. It certainly not going to happen next year
Have to disagree. I graduated from Indiana more than 40 years ago and the football team had the privilege of being one of the worst programs if not the worst program in the country. And 40 years later nothing has changed. We're still historically the worst program in the country.
We’ve won 2 of our last 20 Big Ten games. The rest of the Big Ten quite obviously doesn’t suck almost as bad as we do.
I agree but cannot understand why it seems that historically all of the administrations have behaved in this manner. I have had the opportunity in my work to see some of the finest athletic programs and facilities in this country and let me tell you they cost a lot but they are money makers in so many ways . I have even heard a healthcare system donated over $100M to a program. Good programs attract more donors, keep the students interested, keep more alumni active with the university, increase revenue for other university athletic and academic programs, increase foundations and endowments, and help the community businesses. It's like another brand for the schools. The whole thing just snowballs. College football next to the NFL is the second most popular sport in the country. To be on the indifferent end is a big mistake.
Don’t tell any of this to the basketball board. Basketball can carry us financially all on its own, don’t you know?
Cavanaugh would go into a fetal position if football was ever successful. It would take way too much attention away from grandpa’s million dollar spotlight he just got.
Missed those comments on the BB board
I thought you left this board or have I confused you with someone else?
I’m always happy to help you out with IU football insights. And I’m not on the PU board, but you need to retire from the WC. That’s embarrassing, even for you. Looks like time out is over, though.
This one is simple. Decades of bad football in a wonderful environment full of great people has created FB as a social event where in many places it is a religious event.
Win or lose I enjoy heading to Btown for games and when the enjoyment level inside the stadium exceeds that of my tailgate or a local establishment…that is where I am.
The number of Ws drives which event it becomes.
Everywhere
The difference in Btown is that it is a great place to go. That is not the case in many places
The rest of the Big Ten it's not a 28.1 underdog to Ohio State. And I imagine the spread will be over 30 next Saturday against Michigan.
But you are right. It does not help to be the worst team in the best division.
If you're talking about what it takes for us to become a team that matters in college football, the only way that happens is with an influx of money.
Manchester City was an average Premier League team before they were infused with oil money. Now they win everything.
Oklahoma State was a mediocre Big 12 team before Pickens gave hundreds of millions to the athletic department. Then all of the sudden they start winning 10-12 games per year, even flirting with the playoff. Pickens passed, the money stopped flowing, and they're back to mediocrity.
Money would allow us to get whatever coach/players we wanted. NIL/transfer portal allows us to fix it all within a year.
We don't have any rich donors who want us to compete with the big boys. So we will never, ever be a consistent top ~15 program.
Then you ask what it takes to be top ~40, having the success that we see in other programs but can never seem to sustain here. You do that by finding the right coach. Someone like Leipold at Kansas, Creighton at EMU, DeBoer at Washington. Allen was that guy.
He hit home runs when he hired DeBoer and Wommack as coordinators. That staff gave us back-to-back Florida bowl games in 2019 and 2020. The IU QB was the same guy who is currently the Heisman frontrunner. All the normie IU fans were on the bandwagon, and we were even ranked in the pre-season in 2021.
Then, our O-Line forgot how to block anymore, our Heisman QB got injured as a result, then he left the program because he had no confidence in their blocking or the receivers catching. Now we're back to the basement.
Even after a brutal 2021 season, Allen landed the 4th ranked recruiting class in the Big Ten. So he's actually a guy who can recruit, hire talented coordinators, and succeed at IU. It's just frustrating that he hasn't been able to do it the past 3 years, and there are no signs that it's going to change. We needed miracles to beat WKU and Akron at home the past 2 years.
But Allen is not going anywhere until Dec 2024. As stated earlier - this program doesn't have money like the big boys, we can't afford his buyout. If he can't make a bowl game for 4 straight years, Allen and IU will come to a mutual departure. Then we hope to find someone with a vision for success, who has proven that vision elsewhere, can bring in talented players, and has a chip on their shoulder.
Crazy to think that IU has made (1) external head coaching hire in the past 18 years.
Manchester City was an average Premier League team before they were infused with oil money. Now they win everything.
Oklahoma State was a mediocre Big 12 team before Pickens gave hundreds of millions to the athletic department. Then all of the sudden they start winning 10-12 games per year, even flirting with the playoff. Pickens passed, the money stopped flowing, and they're back to mediocrity.
Money would allow us to get whatever coach/players we wanted. NIL/transfer portal allows us to fix it all within a year.
We don't have any rich donors who want us to compete with the big boys. So we will never, ever be a consistent top ~15 program.
Then you ask what it takes to be top ~40, having the success that we see in other programs but can never seem to sustain here. You do that by finding the right coach. Someone like Leipold at Kansas, Creighton at EMU, DeBoer at Washington. Allen was that guy.
He hit home runs when he hired DeBoer and Wommack as coordinators. That staff gave us back-to-back Florida bowl games in 2019 and 2020. The IU QB was the same guy who is currently the Heisman frontrunner. All the normie IU fans were on the bandwagon, and we were even ranked in the pre-season in 2021.
Then, our O-Line forgot how to block anymore, our Heisman QB got injured as a result, then he left the program because he had no confidence in their blocking or the receivers catching. Now we're back to the basement.
Even after a brutal 2021 season, Allen landed the 4th ranked recruiting class in the Big Ten. So he's actually a guy who can recruit, hire talented coordinators, and succeed at IU. It's just frustrating that he hasn't been able to do it the past 3 years, and there are no signs that it's going to change. We needed miracles to beat WKU and Akron at home the past 2 years.
But Allen is not going anywhere until Dec 2024. As stated earlier - this program doesn't have money like the big boys, we can't afford his buyout. If he can't make a bowl game for 4 straight years, Allen and IU will come to a mutual departure. Then we hope to find someone with a vision for success, who has proven that vision elsewhere, can bring in talented players, and has a chip on their shoulder.
Crazy to think that IU has made (1) external head coaching hire in the past 18 years.
That's slightly above the average spread for Ohio State vs. Big Ten (23.4)
Rutgers = 39 points (Oct 2022)
Northwestern = 37.5 points (Nov 2022)
Indiana = 30 points (Sep 2023)
Iowa = 30 points (Oct 2022)
Michigan St = 27 points (Oct 2022)
========23.4 average==========
Purdue = 19 points (Nov 2021)
Wisconsin = 19 points (Sep 2022)
Maryland = 17 points (Oct 2023)
Penn State = 15.5 points (Oct 2022)
Nebraska = 14 points (Nov 2021)
Michigan = 9 points (Nov 2022)
Who gives a damn what the spread is? FYI - we beat the spread against O$U. How many other B1G have beat the spread against them?
You might want to wait until the end of the season to see who is the worst team.
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