And they have a coach who is the Big Swinging D...uh Boy Part, in all of football.
Coach Allen is OK. Not the worst coach. He does care about his guys and tries to walk it. It was more than time to move on. On investment, Indiana had made a lot of investment in the previous 10-12 years B.C. So Allen must mean NIL.
Yea, Tom’s last year he has $2M of NIL. Had to have been bottom few in the conference.
1. I believe that Tom is genuinely happy for IU and the guys that played for him.
2. Indiana absolutely did not invest in football while he was here.
would you invest in a guy thats slogan was love each other?
would you invest in a guy thats slogan was love each other?
“But when you get the right people and you have a plan and they love one another and play for one another and they commit, anything’s possible.” — Curt Cignetti, post game interview after winning B1G title
https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/curt-cignetti-changed-indiana-football-004957889.html
Any slogan works when you’re winning. If Cig went 4-8, there would be people making fun of “humble and hungry.” “It’s easy to be humble when you suck,” they would say.
Loving each other, accountability, humility, whatever are all cliches and damn near truisms. A team can’t excel if they’re all solely self interested. They have to be willing to sacrifice for one another. That’s love in the sports/team concept. When you win, it’s brilliance, when you lose it’s hokey.
“But when you get the right people and you have a plan and they love one another and play for one another and they commit, anything’s possible.” — Curt Cignetti, post game interview after winning B1G title
Lord, thats the kiss of death. Delete that quote immediately 🤣
Allen has always been a nice man, I just dont think he is a P4 ball coach. I could see him doing really well at a lower level as a HC, MAC or FCS. "Rah Rah" coaches who are mediocre recruiters and not good with the X and Os dont pan out well at high level football. I take a little offense to him saying we lacked investment, because we *did* give him money for assistants after the 2020 season to where he should have been able to find decent coordinators, he just picked the wrong guys. We didnt give him money to compete for B1G titles, but the 2021-2023 seasons were an abomination for what he had to work with. Nick Sheridan is probably the worst playcaller Ive seen in my life, I still cannot believe Alabama had him calling plays for a year.
For comparison, Shanahan made $800k last year. Walt Bell made $700k the year prior. Indiana is now investing at the elite level in football, because we have a head ball coach who warrants that trust.
@tmft I always thought Allen was a HS coach. I thought it was an awful hire and said so on the boards. When he had his COVID year I was like holy hell maybe I don’t know anything about college football. Then he proved me real right by flopping without deboer. He also had Leo on shoes and ended interviews with it. Same as Russell Wilson, who also sucked without the best D of all time behind him. I hate ra ra football guys.
If you actually listen to the quote, instead of just reading the tweet, you'll note that Tom didn't even reference financial commitment while he was there--he just said "in the past," which no one disputes. Tom kept it classier than the tweat
People like to make fun of him for love each other and rah rah but that wasn't the reason he failed and it isn't really that unique.
He didn't recruit well (seemed to chase stars even if the players weren't worth their stars), made boneheaded decisions at key moments in games or didn't have team prepared for key moments (like onside kick), and waited too long to replace bad assistants (OL).
He also struggled with finding replacements for DeBoer and Wommack. Either not capable of locating talented coordinators or didn't have the money/support from the administration to get good assistants. Allen started going down when he lost his good coordinators and replaced him with crappy ones.
Cigs brought good coordinators with him and he hasn't lost them...Hopefully we won't find out anytime soon how well he does in finding replacements. But I don't think IU will make the mistake of making Cigs dumpster dive for replacements like it seems happened under Allen.
@cavanagh Depends on the speaker and the audience. Crosby, Stills and Nash made it work for decades. And, if you were wired a certain way, I would imagine there are some guys who would "invest" in that message! It all comes down to winning. Allen didn't win enough to overlook the goofiness of that message.
When Curt Cignetti took the job, IU substantially increased the amount of money they'd commit to football. Cig told Scott & Pam if they truly want to compete at the highest level, they'd need to double that number.. and they did! That's a huge credit to Scott & Pam willing to trust in Cig and dive two feet in to transform the program.
money/support from the administration to get good assistants
Illinois is paying their coordinators about what we were paying our coordinators during the Allen era. We were investing enough where 2021-2023 should have never happened