Would 3-1 to close the season change your mind?

[IUNorth]

If IU loses, your narrative is "DID WE GET THE WIN? NO? WELL THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS." (Penn State game).

If IU wins, you complain that it's not by a large enough margin. (Akron game).

So going into the PSU game, unless IU were to pull of one of the 10 largest upsets in college football history, you were going to be unhappy with the performance.

If those are the conditions then why watch?

No one is happy with the past 2.5 years. Go ahead and rip apart the Akron game, the Maryland game, the Rutgers game. Or pick literally any game in 2021-22. But when our coach fires the OC, changes the QB, goes into Happy Valley with a QB making his 2nd start and a new OC, put up more points on PSU than any team this year (including OSU), plays a competitive game for 58 minutes with a top 10 team, you want to dismiss the performance because we didn't get the win? Garbage. IU wasn't dominated in the lines. IU didn't have significantly worse athletes. That was the best IU has performed in 3 years.

You say we shouldn't be 30+ point underdogs to Michigan, and that being such significant underdogs shows regression in the program, but don't take into account account that this is the best Michigan team since the 90s. They're currently the national title favorites, over a Georgia team that has won back-to-back titles and is undefeated this year. 2003 we were 33.5 point dogs. 2005 we were 26.5 point dogs. 2016 we were 24.5 point dogs. 2018 we were 28 point dogs. It's not some incredible outlier, especially given the team that they have this year, and the up and down of Michigan's program from Rodriguez to post-COVID Harbaugh. If you want a better benchmark, use OSU. We were 30 point underdogs this year. Average spread the last 24 meetings is 25 points. I cannot remember a time when OSU, UM, and PSU were all top 5 teams. We lost to OSU by 20, PSU by 11, and Mich (who beat MSU by 49, Minn by 42, Nebraska by 38) by 45.

Allen isn't going anywhere at the end of the year. He will be our coach in 2024. IU doesn't have a T. Boone Pickens to pay 20 million to get rid of a coach for a year. That's the reality. And I'm not sure who on earth you think is going to come in and be our savior. Our options are going to be a coordinator at a top program who has never been a head coach before and wants a chance, a lower level coach that succeeded who wants a pay raise, or a coach who flamed out at another head coaching job (we have 2 on staff right now). Who out there is the guy that can do that? IU is NOT a destination job, I would argue that it's coaching suicide. No one has taken this job and gone on to better things elsewhere, but we have ruined the careers of several coaches. The program has made one external hire in 20 years in part because it's really, really hard to convince people to come here. If a coach comes here, they better have a plan like Allen did to bring talent to Bloomington - we share this talent depleted state with another school, and the big boys will pluck whoever they want anyways. Allen's Florida recruiting ties (even bringing the Heisman front runner here) are absolutely an asset that we will lose if he's gone.

We weren't competitive for 58 minutes. We took the ball over on the interception with 5 minutes to go. We stopped being competitive at that point.

I don't care, at all, about spreads. Spreads are set by Vegas to drive bets on both sides. Vegas could think a team was going to win a game, but if the proper spread to drive balanced betting was that team as a +7 underdog, that's where they'd set the line.

In his 7th year, its about wins. First or Second year, building the program, probably a much different view of the PSU game. All the things you mention, for sure, hold more weight than all the mistakes, and then the colossal collapse at the end. But after seeing him coach for 7 years...the mistakes and collapse end up holding more space in many of our heads, because its what Allen coached teams do.

We didn't "beat Akron". They missed a routine, chip shot, FG at the end of regulation. We gave them that opportunity with horrid mistakes, and tons of breakdowns. They beat us, we got lucky. And it wasn't, in any way, similar to how PSU ended up beating us. PSU ended that game with their own solid play at the end. We couldn't do that to Akron...

When you repeatedly make mistakes like Allen coached football teams do. When you repeatedly make questionable in game coaching decisions, like Allen has (even with his good teams). When you rely as heavily on coordinators to even field a marginally competitive team... Then the good aspects of the sporadic good play like we saw on Saturday, has MUCH less staying power. Because we all just assume they'll follow it up with an egg against what should be a beatable team in Wisconsin. And we assume that because that's mostly what Tom Allen has provided us with over his 7 years. And its really ALL hes provided us with the last 3 seasons.

In short...its understandable that many of us can acknowledge the good things we did against PSU, but continue to be mad about the bad things we did.

 

[bang63]

If we go 3-1 the rest of the way, then the improvement argument is probably valid enought to get TA the final year of the promised contract. If that is the case, it should be pretty easy to say that continued improvement means a bowl game in 2024 or his tenure is over.

That being said, I haven't seen anything from this team that suggests to me that it can actually seal the deal and win three of the last four. If we cannot win three of the next four, it's time to cut our losses and move on. Offer TA a reduced buyout with the money up front and hope he bites. Either way, he has to go.

Allen’s contract runs thru 2027

 

[Bowlmania]

If IU loses, your narrative is "DID WE GET THE WIN? NO? WELL THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS." (Penn State game).

If IU wins, you complain that it's not by a large enough margin. (Akron game).

So going into the PSU game, unless IU were to pull of one of the 10 largest upsets in college football history, you were going to be unhappy with the performance.

If those are the conditions then why watch?

No one is happy with the past 2.5 years. Go ahead and rip apart the Akron game, the Maryland game, the Rutgers game. Or pick literally any game in 2021-22. But when our coach fires the OC, changes the QB, goes into Happy Valley with a QB making his 2nd start and a new OC, put up more points on PSU than any team this year (including OSU), plays a competitive game for 58 minutes with a top 10 team, you want to dismiss the performance because we didn't get the win? Garbage. IU wasn't dominated in the lines. IU didn't have significantly worse athletes. That was the best IU has performed in 3 years.

You say we shouldn't be 30+ point underdogs to Michigan, and that being such significant underdogs shows regression in the program, but don't take into account account that this is the best Michigan team since the 90s. They're currently the national title favorites, over a Georgia team that has won back-to-back titles and is undefeated this year. 2003 we were 33.5 point dogs. 2005 we were 26.5 point dogs. 2016 we were 24.5 point dogs. 2018 we were 28 point dogs. It's not some incredible outlier, especially given the team that they have this year, and the up and down of Michigan's program from Rodriguez to post-COVID Harbaugh. If you want a better benchmark, use OSU. We were 30 point underdogs this year. Average spread the last 24 meetings is 25 points. I cannot remember a time when OSU, UM, and PSU were all top 5 teams. We lost to OSU by 20, PSU by 11, and Mich (who beat MSU by 49, Minn by 42, Nebraska by 38) by 45.

Allen isn't going anywhere at the end of the year. He will be our coach in 2024. IU doesn't have a T. Boone Pickens to pay 20 million to get rid of a coach for a year. That's the reality. And I'm not sure who on earth you think is going to come in and be our savior. Our options are going to be a coordinator at a top program who has never been a head coach before and wants a chance, a lower level coach that succeeded who wants a pay raise, or a coach who flamed out at another head coaching job (we have 2 on staff right now). Who out there is the guy that can do that? IU is NOT a destination job, I would argue that it's coaching suicide. No one has taken this job and gone on to better things elsewhere, but we have ruined the careers of several coaches. The program has made one external hire in 20 years in part because it's really, really hard to convince people to come here. If a coach comes here, they better have a plan like Allen did to bring talent to Bloomington - we share this talent depleted state with another school, and the big boys will pluck whoever they want anyways. Allen's Florida recruiting ties (even bringing the Heisman front runner here) are absolutely an asset that we will lose if he's gone.

Not sure I agree with everything in the last paragraph, but you make some excellent points in your post including the comments about the Penn State game. But no one will remember or care about that game if we don't build on it this season. We have to play well against Wisconsin and, in my view, we have to win three out of four this month. No more Saturday afternoon shitshows or the Penn State game was meaningless.

 

[oldcougar77]

Allen’s contract runs thru 2027

That is correct - and my mistake. I was thinking of 2024 because that is when the buyout drops to a much more manageable figure. While I can comprehend that IU might keep him through next season ( especially if there is improvement over the remainder of this season) because of the price of terminating him, I cannot even begin to fathom that he would not be dismissed next December absent a substantial turnaround in 2024.

 

[HoosierNative]

Thank you … two thirds of the way through the season and zero fumble recoveries—odd.

Maybe, they come in bunches the rest of the season.

Two today!!