IU football vacancy has never looked prettier, but Big Ten has never looked scarier
Two ways to look at the IU football job that came open on a cold, windy Sunday morning in Bloomington, where the administration at Indiana spent millions of dollars to fire Tom Allen.
One, the Hoosiers' vacancy has never been more attractive than right now, in part because of what Allen was able to do a few years back — what he showed was possible at IU — and in part because of the larger forces that have turned college football upside down.
Used to be, coaches would be terrified of a job like the one at Indiana. A football program at a basketball school, a football team with the unmistakable whiff of defeat? It’d take years to turn that thing around.
Never mind what IU’s new coach might be saying about competing for titles and doing it quickly; he’d come here knowing that was impossible. In the sea of college sports, a Division I football program with 85 scholarship players was an ocean liner — big, bulky, able to change directions only incrementally.
Along came NIL and the transfer portal, and a conference realignment featuring winners (the SEC and Big Ten) and losers (everyone else), and now anything seems possible. The right coach at the right moment can turn a forever cumbersome football program into something sleeker in two steps:
∎ Dip into the transfer portal and find the right quarterback for the Hoosiers. Look at the three leading 2023 Heisman Trophy candidates: Bo Nix, Jayden Daniels and Michael Penix Jr. Nix transferred from Auburn to Oregon, Daniels from Arizona State to LSU, and Penix from (ahem) IU to Washington. More than that, all three transferred in 2022 to play for the new coach at Oregon (Dan Lanning), LSU (Brian Kelly) and Washington (Kalen DeBoer). One of those three quarterbacks will win the Heisman Trophy, and depending how things shake out in the next week, two of them — Nix and Penix — could find themselves in the 2023 College Football Playoff, with a shot at the national championship.
∎ Get IU alumni excited to pay for a winning football team. It’s not cheating anymore, which means boosters at ethical football schools like IU and Purdue can now do like boosters in warmer parts of the country and start paying for players. College football is pro football, with NCAA leadership more interested in hanging onto its power than enforcing the rules against cheating, especially when NIL has essentially legalized cheating.
Do those two things, and a really bad IU football program in 2023 could be in a bowl game by 2024, and aiming even higher in 2025.
Doyel, on Saturday: Purdue wins Bucket behind young stars while IU has same old Tom Allen problem
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Tom Allen's buyout shows IU serious about football
That’s one way to look at this IU football program, and there will be coaches out there who see it that way.
The first place I’d look, if I were IU athletic director Scott Dolson, is at school outside the new power structure of college football. Sure, that means coaches at conferences like the MAC and Sun Belt and AAC, whatever that is. But it also means coaches in the ACC and Big 12, conferences that have survived the latest wave of realignment but remain antelope in a wilderness of wolves (Big Ten) and hyenas (SEC).
If IU is to be serious about football — and paying Tom Allen one of the biggest buyouts in college football history is the move of a serious football school — it has to hire a coach with an ability to work free agency (i.e. the transfer portal) and build the slush fund to pay for it (i.e. NIL).
This isn’t the business we’ve chosen, but it’s the one the feeble NCAA has allowed to happen.
Doyel in 2022: Under outgoing president Mark Emmert, NCAA careened out of control
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That’s the best-case scenario for IU to turn this thing around quickly, and it’s more possible now than ever. Some IU fans and even administrators would have to hold their nose to block the stench of what this sport has become, but it’s either that or keep enjoying the whiff of defeat.
There’s another scenario, a bleaker one, though I’m not sure it’s more likely. In all seriousness, now is the time for IU football to make its move. By going a combined 14-7 in 2019 and ’20, with an 11-5 record in Big Ten play, Allen showed this program can beat the likes of Penn State and reach the Top 10 nationally and play in New Year’s bowls in Florida. Someone out there, and not just someone coaching a school in the MAC or Sun Belt or AAC, was taking notice.
But there is another scenario, and it’s terrifying.
Bloated Big Ten is terrifying, though
All the ground we’ve covered — NIL and transfer portal and (especially) conference realignment — can work against the Hoosiers. It starts with the growth of the Big Ten from powerhouse to monstrosity. The league already has two of the top three programs in the latest college football poll, No. 2 Ohio State and No. 3 Michigan, and in 2024 will add No. 5 Washington, No. 6 Oregon and two more once-mighty programs, Southern California and UCLA, with the tradition, location and NIL resources to return to the Top 10 and stay there forever.
That’s four of the top six teams in the latest college football poll, which means the Big Ten has been significantly more competitive this season than the SEC, where NIL funds were in play before anyone had heard of NIL funds.
What kind of coach wants to join this league? Someone with confidence and ambition, and they’re out there. IU has to figure out which confident, ambitious coach — and there are dozens — is best suited to work the transfer portal and boosters to max effect.
The best choice entering the week is already gone, what with Jonathan Smith leaving his alma mater and dream job, No. 15 Oregon State (8-3), for the vacancy at hapless Michigan State (4-8). Because it’s like I told you earlier: Oregon State was on the wrong side of conference realignment, and any coach on the wrong side of that divide wants to come to this one over here.
By moving on from Tom Allen within hours of another season-ending loss to Purdue, IU cannot be beaten to the hiring punch by anyone else. Now the Hoosiers just need to get their finances in order, study the landscape of what we still call “college football,” and find the coach best suited for this scary new world.
He's out there. And if IU can find him, he won’t need much time to turn this ship around.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana football fires Tom Allen, eyes fast fix in NIL, portal era
