There are unsettling differences between the beginning of December 2015 and the beginning of December 2016 for the IU football program.
After a 6-6 season last season, IU Athletics Director Fred Glass was welcomed into practice by then-Coach Kevin Wilson. Glass stood in front of the team, reached into his jacket and pulled out two New York Yankees baseball caps.
“We’re going to New York,” Glass said, and the players celebrated a bid to the New Era Pinstripe Bowl in New York City.
Fast-forward to December 2016 after another 6-6 season, and Fred Glass has accepted a bid to the 2016 Foster Farms Bowl to play No. 19 Utah on Dec. 28 in Santa Clara, California. IU is going to back-to-back bowl games for the first time since 1990-91.
However, the athletic director didn’t tell Wilson. He told new IU Coach Tom Allen, who told his team on its first practice without its head coach of six years.
“When something like this happens, there’s just a lot of questions — questions on the coaches, questions on their future, everything,” Allen said. “For me it’s a matter of calming everybody down and saying, ‘Here’s what we’re gonna do. This is the vision between now and getting us to the bowl game.’”
The days since Wilson’s resignation have been a whirlwind for Allen.
Fewer than 12 months after being hired by Wilson as IU’s defensive coordinator, Allen saw investigations into Wilson’s treatment of players and philosophical differences between Wilson and Glass lead Wilson to resign.
The day after unexpectedly accepting his new head coaching job, Allen flew to Florida and watched his son and IU commit, Thomas Allen, move on to the state finals of Class 7A football with the Plant High School Panthers.
The new coach was back in Bloomington on Sunday though, for practice and was ready to lead a team filled with players openly concerned about Wilson’s situation.
“It’s been a really crazy few days, but it’ll calm down,” Allen said. “At the same time, it’s been exciting. Our coaches are banding together, locking arms and just attacking this thing together.”
The attack begins by keeping everything as close to the way it was before Thursday.
The last thing the new coach wants to do is change the culture and environment of the team before it plays its biggest game of the season, Allen said. Wilson’s culture drove the Hoosiers to two consecutive bowl bids and four consecutive Old Oaken Buckets.
The program hasn’t seen this kind of success in decades.
Every player on the team was recruited by Wilson. This includes first-year Hoosier quarterback Richard Lagow and the rest of the IU offense, which Allen — a defensive-minded coach — said he’s not touching until after the bowl.
He will limit the coaching changes until after the bowl game.
Quality control contributor Shawn Watson — who coached former Louisville quarterback and current Minnesota Viking Teddy Bridgewater — is now quarterbacks coach.
Offensive coordinator Kevin Johns also coached the quarterbacks and wide receivers while Wilson was coaching in addition to swapping play-calling duties with the head coach by quarter. Watson’s promotion takes some pressure off Johns while he calls all the offense’s plays, Allen said.
Everything else remains the same.
“We haven’t made a lot of changes up to this point,” Allen said. “We want our guys to be comfortable with what we’re doing offensively and defensively and want the schedule to be similar. As far as our guys and who we’ll be coaching with, it’ll be very similar for sure.”
As Allen turns his focus toward the bowl game, the new head coach said he knows little about the Utah Utes. He hasn’t seen them play all year.
The Hoosiers didn’t face a team from the Pac 12 conference this season, and the last time they played a Pac 12 team was in 2004 when they defeated then-No. 24 Oregon, 30-24.
Allen said studying one opponent for an entire month can make a game become stale and curb enthusiasm, so he plans to use the next few weeks to help players rest after 10 consecutive weeks without a bye week.
He’s already downloaded a lot of film, though, which he’ll study while he’s on the recruiting trail this week as he works to develop a plan to take on one of the Hoosiers’ toughest opponents this season.
Utah is 8-4 with wins against USC and UCLA and narrow losses to Oregon and current No. 4 Washington. Allen said he’s watched the Utes in the past and knows they are a spread offense, but that’s about it.
“It’s a team where there’s not really a common opponent, so it’ll be a challenge,” Allen said. “They’re not going to be running the triple option, I know that. They aren’t going to be in the I-formation a whole lot, I know that.”
