Lynch to stay on as head football coach

Bill Lynch can breathe easy.\nFollowing months of speculation as to whether he would retain the head coaching job for the IU football team at the end of the season, IU Director of Athletics Rick Greenspan announced Monday that Lynch – IU’s 27th head football coach – and the University had agreed to a contract.\n“I’m sincerely honored that Bill would choose to tackle this challenge of building the program to the level (to) which we aspire,” Greenspan said.\nLeading the Hoosiers to a 7-5 record and likely its first bowl game since 1993, Lynch signed a 4-year contract worth about $600,000 annually – plus incentives – that will keep him through 2012.\nLynch, 53, said he was offered the contract Friday after IU President Michael McRobbie gave his support in favor of Lynch as \nhead coach.\n“Our football team this year was more competitive and generated more enthusiasm and fan support than in any year since I have been at IU,” McRobbie said in a press release. “I am extremely proud of our players and of the job Bill Lynch has done under very difficult circumstances. He has earned the title of head coach and I am confident that he will have the full support of all \nHoosier fans.”\nLynch said it did not take long to make a decision.\n“Did I have to take the weekend?” Lynch said. “No, I had to take long enough to say ‘Yes.’ But I really think the process was what needed to be done.”\nGreenspan said that, going into the season, he did not tell Lynch the team needed a certain amount of wins for him to be offered the job.\n“Going back to June, I would probably describe the job I asked Bill to do would be almost in the way of triage,” Greenspan said. “As the season progressed, I think we could see where we were going from mending some broken hearts to mending some ankles.”\nGreenspan said he did not conduct a national search for a head coach, but did say he spent a considerable amount of time researching other possible candidates he could see leading the IU football program. However, Greenspan said Lynch’s on-the-job performance this season made him the best person for the position.\n“I certainly do that kind of homework and that kind of due diligence,” Greenspan said. “But I felt like in Bill’s case, he had an interview that probably lasted about nine months long, and that was better than anybody I \ncould interview.”\nRetaining Lynch as head coach gives the Hoosiers continuity within their program. Since 2001, IU has gone through four head coaches, and to replace Lynch would require bringing in a fifth.\nStability at the head coach position also makes the Hoosiers an easier sell to potential recruits, Lynch said. A Hoosier legend echoed \nthat thought. \n“Recruiting is very important, and these kids have been through a lot emotionally,” said former star IU running back Anthony Thompson. “I think Bill Lynch, he’s a man who knows how to get the kids to play hard and stay focused on why they’re here. We need that in this program.”\nLynch took the reigns as the interim coach just before the passing of head coach Terry Hoeppner in June. Throughout the season, Lynch had expressed his desire to stay as the head coach at IU, but was told the situation would take care of itself at the end of \nthe season.\nLeading the Hoosiers to a 5-1 record to start the season, Lynch’s team faltered and lost four of its next five games before its last game against Purdue. \nBut with a 27-24 last-second win over Purdue, the Hoosiers notched their seventh win of the season and will likely play in a \nbowl game.\nAs a head coach, Lynch boasts a career record of 88-72-3, with previous head coaching stops at Butler, DePauw and Ball State. Before being named interim head coach in July, Lynch also filled in for two games as head coach for IU in 2006.