Magnanimous

 

At least Bud Mackey had the decency to do this crap before he got on campus. What a waste....Wasn't Allen an Army AA?

  They went 7-5 that year with one quality win, which is what Penn State has been doing three out of four years for the last 15 years. What about that game would have been so different if it was just another year for them? They still would've been on to a new coach (and they got a pretty good one in O'Brien). They still would have been starting a new QB (and they had a pretty good one in Hackenberg, his freshman year anyway). They still would have been overwhelmingly starting the same players on offense and defense. Silas Redd was their only big loss from the sanction transfers, and he wasn't going to stay there by 2013. If anything, they would have had the same team without the #1 QB in that class, and probably would have been starting some 3-star from Erie, PA.   The fact is that record wise, that team wouldn't have been much different than the team they were going to be fielding anyway. The only thing you could argue would have been different is that Tom Bradley may have still been around as d-coordinator, which they were hurt by. But personnel wise in 2013 they were just about what they would have been. Last year was when the effects of the sanctions started to really hit them, as their o-line was severely depleted.

  Why not? The traditional Penn State hasn't existed in almost 20 years. They're still a good program who pulls in top-tier talent. The sanctions' effect on that game was minimal to say the least. I know that you obviously don't understand how teams build themselves, but most of those players were holdovers from the Paterno regime, the depth issues were just starting to make an impact, and Paterno would have been dead regardless, so them dealing with a new coach was going to happen regardless.

  When this team played to its potential last year, they beat the eventual SEC East champions at their place. That game wasn't a fluke. It has been 20 years since an IU team has even had a ceiling like that, let alone an expectation of what they are typically capable of when things click on both sides of the ball. Not that they will be competing with ranked teams week in and week out, but that is progress. And considering there was literally no one on defense when Wilson took over, three years is enough to still blame Lynch. Year four goes on Mallory, but the program has rectifyed that situation. I agree that the excuse period is over at this point, but I don't understand why you fail to realize there were perfectly legitimate reasons outside of Wilson's control for why this team struggled his first few years.

  IU's football season was over the second Sudfeld separated his shoulder. Outside of Coleman, the offense literally couldn't move the ball, and as a result the defense was on the field more than they should have been and in terrible starting field position a lot of the time.   Knorr made a lot of improvements with the defense last year. Tackling technique, gap filling, pass rushing were all improved, and that was while implementing a completely new scheme. Again, it takes time to build a defense. The talent Wilson has recruited on that end were true freshmen in the 528 year, they were 19 last year. Wilson had no one on defense when he took over, and yes that is Lynch's fault. Lynch also benefited from the players Hep brought in did little to sustain what he started with. This isn't a video game where you get one talented defensive player and he single handidly shuts down an opponent's offense. Depth is crucial to CFB defense. Why do you think Penn State and USC tailed off when they got sanctioned, even though they still brought in four and five star talent on defense? Because they had no depth. IU is bringing in talent, but it takes several successive classes to parlay that into actual results.   The numbers aren't as relevant as the direction the program goes in. Wilson's team is trending upwards, Lynch's teams plateaud at the bottom of the conference after 07. This team is very close to being semi-relevant in the conference. I know that's an idiotic sounding statement, but for IUFB that is progress. There's promise in this team, and I think we've brought in a pretty good d-coordinator whose scheme will alleviate some of the deficencies that were stuck with.   Talent wise and trajectory wise, the defense WIlson is now fielding is incomparable to what IU used to have under Lynch. We have four-star talent on the defensive line an an Army AA playing safety. That's a long way from Richard Council, Chris Adkins, and Matt Ernest covering division 1 receivers.    You want to talk about Lynch's last year? We had an NFL-caliber receiver, the Big 10's leading passer, 8 home games, and we couldn't even make a bowl game (without anyone getting injured along the way either). If Lynch had come back the next year we would have won one to two games and still be in the funk we were in his second and third year. If you don't want to believe in this team that's your choice, and so is hating on Kevin Wilson, but it doesn't change reality.

  Kevin Wilson also had to build this entire team from scratch because Bill Lynch didn't recruit a defensive player for three years, relied on a gimmick offense that included two quarterbacks in the backfield at the same time, and fielded a team that gave up 83 points to Wisconsin. Did I mention our secondary consisted of our baseball team? Meanwhile last year CKW's team became the first Big10 team to ever beat a ranked SEC team on the road. IU has also led the conference in passing, and produced a RB who had one of the best seasons in CFB history.   Kevin Wilson is far from perfect, but this team has looked more like an actual football team than anything IU has put together in nearly two decades.

  The defense didn't call a short pass play against Minnesota that resulted in a game ending fumble. That same D kept us in the Missouri, Ohio State, and Penn State games last year. They're obviously far from perfect, but the talent is increasing, the technique is improving, and if you think that this is the same defense as the one Bill Lynch fielded that consisted of half our baseball team, then you're not paying attention. I expect them to take a pretty big leap forward this year.   I know nothing is guarenteed with IUFB, but we should start 4-0 this season. Can't see why we can't win two conference games.

As CKW said recently, this has been a bowl team the last two years. On paper, this team is good enough to finish about 7th in the conference. But one or two things have screwed that up the last few years. I think that 13th is ridiculous and most likely will not happen, but it's a safe pick until proven otherwise.

  The last IU RB drafted was actually Steve Lee taken in the 6th round by Baltimore in 1997.

  2005 - Frank Gore is 6th RB taken 2008 - Jamaal Charles is 9th RB taken 2011 - Demarco Murray is 6th RB taken 2012 - Alfred Morris is 12th RB taken   I'd rather see Tevin fall to a team that is well-rounded and can provide him an actual opportunity to shine than have him end up in Cleveland, Oakland, or Buffalo or on some team that will ruin his career before he even takes a snap. Teams know he is good and know that they can get him after the first round. He's going to fall, and he's going to be a huge steal. IU football can't overcome the perception that the talking anuses of the ESPN "family of networks" put on players from certain programs. A guy who plays for Georgia and tears his ACL is the surefire #1 RB, but a RB who plays for Indiana who missed three games his sophomore season has "injury concerns."  Just need to keep your head down and keep working at it. Fortunately, Tevin seems to have this mentality down pat.

Any relation to Curtis Enis?

  This is all a big ploy between the Crimson schools. Alabama wants Crean and we want Marshall. Alabama knows Marshall doesn't want to go there, so they're trying to hurry us up in canning Crean. Likewise, Oklahoma is giving us Bob Stoops once Kevin Wilson gets enough of Stoop's system players on the roster as a thank you for taking Sampson off their hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbTAMqtZVs

Tevin has been named a first team All-American by USA Today and CBS Sports. The College Football Awards Show is tonight at 7 pm. While it is assumed Melvin Gordon will win the Doak, Tevin is a finalist, and should very well be named first team AA by the AP tonight as well.

Thanks Michigan. You just lost the Big10-Independent Challenge for us.

Pretty funny post on rivals that's worth a quick read. Link

  Probably as strange as the fact we put a million dollar football hire in McNutt instead of a hotel.

  Nate has a lot of natural talent, but there isn't anything special about him. He is very methodical in how he plays QB.

Wouldn't have been surprised at first given he visted them during a whiteout, but PSU's QB situation and Hackenberg's regression gave me a little more hope he'd stay. But not a surprise.   On the bright side, I think that this provides a great opportunity for Wilson to land a transfer from a big program. Sit next year while Nate finishes his IU career, then take over the team in 2016.

I don't mind the idea of brining in John Harbaugh even though IMO that would be settling. He could potentially be a good fit though. He's an "Indiana Man" as he was an IU assistant in 1997, so he gets our culture and that will definitely sit well with the big-wigs running our football program, as last time we didn't stay "in-house" with our coaching search. I'm totally for bringing in former players and assistants back to Bloomington. While we're at it, there is a former IU assistant who deserves a look if Crean is let go. I think his name is Krzyzewski? He's an Indiana Man as well, IU is his dream job, and he loves a challenge. Maybe he's just burned out at Duke and wants to try something new.   (For anyone thinking I'm serious, no, I'm just applying Michigan logic to IU sports).

  Agreed. Much better coaches than Wilson have gotten off to equally slow or even worse starts at programs. You have to remember how bare the cupboard was when Wilson came in, especially on defense. It took Crean (I know...) four years to put a winning basketball team together. Football takes much longer, and if our QB was healthy, we may already be there.

IU's football expectations are so low, that this looks like progress compared to Bill Lynch's teams. By progress I mean that we have JUCOs and 3* defenders in our secondary, instead of our baseball team. By progress I mean we run a normal offense, instead of gimmicks like having two QBs in the backfield at the same time (Chappel and Lewis). Any by progress I mean we somehow beat ranked SEC teams on the road...   This was a tough break for WIlson and IUFB this year with Nate going down. The BG loss was inexcusable, but the Mizzou win outweighs it because it showed what this team is (was) capable of when clicking. Maryland was a bad matchup for our team, so I'm not that critical of that loss. Honestly, I thought we'd take a dip in the middle of the season (Maryland, @Iowa, MSU) and then have a good November playing Michgian, Penn State, Rutgers, and Purdue. We did take that dip, but unfortunately we have a hothead flag football player taking snaps at this point, so there isn't much we can do against the weaker part of our schedule. I did think that Wilson should've let Diamont throw more today early on to open things up, but man this kid can't move an offense to save his life. He reminds me of an inept version of Gary Nova (Rutgers QB), which is saying something.   I do think that Wilson deserves to see the 2013 class through. That was his first real talented recruiting class and those kids are only Sophomores. Latham, Dutra, Simmons, Allen, and Fant are starting to show some promise on the defensive side of the ball, and Scales is also impressing as a Frosh. He's not leaving after this year after having his only QB go down.

Stevens is still listed as an IU commit. Any update on this end? Even though we haven't had a QB for the last month, Penn State has been a QB hell-hole right now with Hackenberg flipping out on the field at this teammates and coaches. We play Penn State this weekend, so is Tommy expected to be in attendance?

  Except that he wasn't benched after the first fumble.