Tom Allen Now HC at IU

Submitted by jimmyshi03 on

Announced at press conference after Kevin wilson's "resignation." No search. Allen was IU's DC who improved that unit so much after coming in from USF. He is an Indiana native.

AD is saying there were "philosophical differences," but they had brought in an outside investigator to look at program.

From Brian Bennett:

"Kevin WIlson had about $11 million left on his deal. Settled for $542,000 to go away. "

True Blue Grit

December 1st, 2016 at 6:32 PM ^

in such a short amount of time, I'm still having a hard time getting my mind around it.  Wilson was so successful there, so I have to assume that the reason for this change is some pretty bad shit.  Shocking.  

trustBlue

December 1st, 2016 at 11:35 PM ^

I'm sure his contract does not allow him to be unilaterally fired without "cause". That means if they force him out then Wilson can sue and IU would have to prove in court that there was sufficient cause to fire him (as defined by the contract). Giving him a payment and getting him to voluntarily agree to resign avoids a lot of potentially messy litigation and saves the University the embarrassment of airing a bunch of dirty laundry in court.

What I am more surprised was that Wilson was able to be bought off for such a low figure. That suggests that there something clearly bad enough he felt that he was better off just taking whatever he could and getting out of dodge.

superstringer

December 1st, 2016 at 6:37 PM ^

We have 7 teams in the division, and now 4 of them are headed by former DCs -- MSU, Rutgers, Maryland and Indiana.  Urbs and Franklin were offensive assistants, not to imply that they assisted offensively.  JMFH was an assistant only once (IIRC), the QB coach for the Rrrrrraaaaaaiderrrrrrrs (spoken w/ growl).  The balance of power is clearly tilted, right now, in favor of the three HC's that come from the offensive side.

Carcajou

December 1st, 2016 at 7:37 PM ^

For most of the 2000s, seems like everybody wanted to hire guys from the offensive of side of the ball for HC. Maybe now the pendulum has swung back a bit.

Besides Michigan, Ohio State and PSU are on a different level in terms of being able to attract coaches and talent from MSU, Rutgers, Maryland and Indiana. The latter may have realized- you may want a good offense to put butts in seats, but in this division, in this conference (and especially the last month of the season), you need to understand defense will be shredded by superior talent if you can't slow them down or force them into making mistakes occaisionally. Besides, if you're an AD, you pass the responsibility for making a good OC hire onto the the HC.

stephenrjking

December 1st, 2016 at 6:38 PM ^

If Wilson was potentially endangering players, but it wasn't a situation corrupting the entire staff, I guess this makes sense. I would like to think that B1G teams can hire better coaches than they often do, but then again this is Indiana we are talking about.

Indiana is never going to be elite. But they were scary competitive in the best division in college football. They've been consistently competitive for years. So, if Allen is clean with regards to the alleged Wilson problems, this might be a realistic choice to continue the existing plan. No need to disrupt the program to hire some unknown coordinator or mid-level MAC coach when you can continue a program that has grown impressively on the field.

And the defense has certainly shown real improvement, so it seems that the guy knows how to coordinate. Why not move him up?

GoBlueAlways11

December 1st, 2016 at 6:49 PM ^

Props to Indiana for recogonize Tom Allen is an up and coming stud. Totally changed IU's defense without a talent upgrade. Although it's a shame to see Kevin Wilson go, who is obviously an excellent offensive coach, it''s understandable (though disappointing) if these abusive treatment of players is true. I am, however, reminded of that article posted on this board the other day about the frequency of cheating in college football. It basically said all college football coaches are put in a position where everyone cheats, and they can either cheat and hope not to get caught, or run a clean program without cheating and face the very real risk of losing your job due to how result based a coaches job is. Obviously you should never compromise a student athletes health, especially if they themselves were not willing to begin with. 

Yeoman

December 1st, 2016 at 8:41 PM ^

No, I mean they might be part of the reason Wilson caved so easily. He gets fired for cause, he loses his coverage. He settles and that clause isn't triggered.

I just have a feeling that they'd strongly prefer nondisclosure, that their settlement leverage if any suits were filed would be damaged by any public airing of the grievances here.

Though I suppose its possible that what happened is so damning that nondisclosure is really worth eight figures to Wilson on its own.

Don

December 1st, 2016 at 7:42 PM ^

That Greg Frey would be the next HC. He's been at IU since Wilson was hired and unless he's also implicated or doesn't want to be HC seems like he got passed over.