Riley Neal? Worth a look?

[rmouse511]

With the recent decommitment of Stevens, is Riley Neal of Yorktown worth a look. He has been VERY impressive this year!

[HoosierReb01]

Per Rivals, he's on the radar. How serious we are looking it doesn't say.

[hoosha61]

He's already committed to BSU, He needs to add a few lbs. Very athletic for his size.

[FKfootball]

Im sure we can flip him from Ball State.

[CampHoosier]

It would be a sad day when we would need to flip a kid from BSU to us

[ThompsonHoosier]

Looks like the next coming of Ben Chappell

[shortspacequickness]

It would be a sad day when we would need to flip a kid from BSU to us

Ehh...idk. Ball State is a better football program. haha

[TheWatShot]

Ball State has had 2 QB's drafted in the last six years. Plus, they've been to bowl games recently, something our coaching staff can't seem to figure out. Not sure why Neal would come here. 

[bleedhoosier]

Yea ball state is certainly better than IU as a football program. Maybe he wants some more national attention though. Not too far fetched

[akhosrof]

Ball State has had 2 QB's drafted in the last six years. Plus, they've been to bowl games recently, something our coaching staff can't seem to figure out. Not sure why Neal would come here.

Sounds like we should bring their coaching staff with him. Lol jk! :D

[TheWatShot]

Sounds like we should bring their coaching staff with him. Lol jk! :D

 

They hired Lembo a few weeks after we hired Wilson. Nobody here will admit it, but if we could go back 4 years and hire Lembo instead, we'd be in a much better spot right now. 

[HoosierReb01]

They hired Lembo a few weeks after we hired Wilson. Nobody here will admit it, but if we could go back 4 years and hire Lembo instead, we'd be in a much better spot right now. 

Oh, I would admit it, if I believed it to be true. 

[TheWatShot]

Oh, I would admit it, if I believed it to be true. 

 

And you don't because...

[KingPG21]

They hired Lembo a few weeks after we hired Wilson. Nobody here will admit it, but if we could go back 4 years and hire Lembo instead, we'd be in a much better spot right now. 

For one comparing the success at a freaking MAC school to one in the Big Ten isn't exactly a fair argument. 

[TheWatShot]

A MAC school that's gone 2-0 against us in that time frame…lol. 

[FKfootball]

Lembo and Neal would both rather be here and it could happen.

[HoosierReb01]

And you don't because...

A. Lembo may be a excellent coach and go on to do great things at a Power 5 school, but getting the players and coaching them up to compete in the MAC isn't the same thing. And I'm not one that downs MAC schools, I think there is some damn fine football played there. 

 

B. Having a coach with head coaching experience would have had some advantage. But unless you brought in a coach with "star power", I fear we would have no more, and maybe considerably less recruiting success. I want to see players coached up, but IU had had plenty of MAC (or less) level talent that has been coached up to a point that we would have competed about the middle of the MAC.

 

C. I am not sure what the deal was with the hiring of Doug Mallory as DC. Some have suggested that this might not have been totally in CKW's hands. If that's true, the one thing any other coach would have had to do to improve on what CKW has done, would be to avoid hiring Doug Mallory as DC. If they can't avoid that, whatever else they do is probably a mute point. 

 

D. This is Indiana, the last place most coaches want to be, and definitely not a destination school for most recruits. Hell, I suspect it will take a couple of bowl season's to even get enough fans to show up every week to fill Memorial Stadium. There is nothing about IU football that is appealing to any but someone who loves a challenge. Fans are waiting for something to cheer for, but my experiences at Memorial is that it is often a lifeless crowd who are just expecting something bad to happen. The players and staff want the crowd into the game, but that is going to happen when we get crowds that are expecting success, and seeing results in the win/loss column. A Hoeppner type coach may well get fan support and enthusiasm, but unless Lembo or any other coach can pull that off, it is a serious disadvantage in recruiting and provides little home field advantage.

 

Conclusion: I would not positively say that we would not be better under Lembo, but your statement lacks any supporting argument why he would be better and I know of no reason to believe he would. Care to point out any reasons why he would be?

[TheWatShot]

 

Conclusion: I would not positively say that we would not be better under Lembo, but your statement lacks any supporting argument why he would be better and I know of no reason to believe he would. Care to point out any reasons why he would be?

 

Lembo has coached for 14 seasons and has finished with a losing record only twice. He went 44-14 at Lehigh and they were noticeably worse before he got there and after he left. He went 35-22 at Elon before coming to Ball State. BSU won just 6 games in the two seasons combined before he arrived, and he went 6-6 his first year. Say what you will about where he coached, but the guy wins games. Then we have Wilson, who's currently sitting at 13-33. 

 

 

Numbers aside…my biggest problem with Wilson is the lack of leadership I see from him. Who are the leaders on this team? Who have the leaders been on any of his teams? A team that doesn't know its starting QB from week to week will probably struggle. We had capable QB's in Roberson and Sudfeld, but Wilson displayed his lack of leadership by randomly flipping back and forth between the two. Now one is injured, and the guy who threw six TD passes against Purdue is playing for Illinois State. 

 

 

Ball State faces similar problems to IU (albeit on a smaller scale). Their facilities are lagging behind other MAC schools and they struggle to fill a 22,000 seat stadium. They are the only school in FBS without an indoor practice facility. Lembo has actively pushed for improvements to be made, and the school promoted him to associate athletic director. He has done everything in his power to get more people to show up for games, sending weekly emails to students and appearing on campus to meet them.

 

 

Does Wilson ever do anything like this? People will support you if they know you and like you. Based on CampCrean's story about meeting Wilson a few years ago, he doesn't sound like the type of coach students would rally around. Responding to "welcome to IU coach" with "you weren't the two little shits keeping me up last night, were you?" when he could have just said "thanks" was another character flaw revealed. If any coach ever responded to me like that, I'd feel no inclination to ever wish them success. 

 

Lembo will leave Ball State at some point, but he relishes the challenge of improving the program. I just feel like Wilson kind of resents the obstacles he encounters and doesn't care if anyone supports him or not. 

[HoosierReb01]

I'll say this on CKW, at this point the jury is still out on him as a head coach. Part of the problem with promoting a coordinator to head coach, no matter where they were coordinator at, is they have to learn head coaching on the job. That is often done at smaller schools, rather than at a Power 5 school. Some very good coordinators make it happen, some don't. I think Fred Glass went for the home run hire. He could have hired a experienced head coach from a smaller school, who would have most likely had better success earlier. He swung for the fences, believing he had a coach who could elevate the IU football program beyond the occasional bowl game. He went for someone who he believed could raise the program to B1G contenders. CKW has, I believe, 3 years left on his contract. He was given time to accomplish that goal. Without a doubt, he's going to have a problem being here to the end of that contract if something doesn't change in the W-L column. 

 

The lack of leadership has concerned me at times, but I also see that we keep playing the best players, which leaves us with a lot of underclassmen on the field. I would hope we see leaders developing there. As far as the Sudfeld/Roberson playing, I believe the point was to get one to stand out from the other. I see your point, but would have to point out that neither one ever stood out over the other consistently, and at times one replaced the other mid-game because their leadership of the offense had it stagnated. I doubt that his flipping back and forth was truly random. On the other hand, his "lack of leadership" in picking a QB ended with him picking a QB, and Roberson apparently wasn't the one. Or so the word is. CKW didn't injure Sudfeld, and I really doubt that Roberson was forced out, so I have a hard time laying that on CKW.

 

CampCrean's story is very consistent with many stories that we heard about from CKW's first year. Not exactly very inspiring stories. However, whatever was going on there seems to have leveled out and the stories about CKW's PR issues seem to have declined. In fact, I really haven't heard anything in quite some time. He still may not be the most diplomatic coach ever, but personally I don't think we need the perfect Mr. Nice Guy. On the other hand, his persona will come back to bite him even quicker if he doesn't put some more wins up.

 

I know that Jerry Kill's name has come up any number of times as the coach we should have hired. And there is no doubt that he is a excellent coach, but I don't think that hiring him would have been swinging for the fences.  I don't see Minny under him ever being a consistent contender in the B1G. Will he have winning season's? He's already answered that question. And he'll go to bowl games. But I doubt that Minny will ever be anything but a team that wins 7 or 8 games and goes to a bowl game most years. And that ain't bad. Would Lembo be a coach that accomplishes more than that? I don't know, but I tend to suspect that its kind of the same thing. Did Glass hit a homer with CKW or just a long fly out? I suspect we are going to get some answers on that in the next year or two.