On Monday, newly named offensive line coach Rod Carey answered questions from the media after being promoted Sunday afternoon.
“Surreal to be back,” Carey said.
Prior to Carey’s coaching career, he was a three-year starter at center for the Hoosiers from 1990-1993. During his senior year, he was awarded Indiana’s Corby Davis Outstanding Offensive Player Award.
After his playing career concluded, Carey quickly got into coaching. Before being hired at Indiana, he served as the head football coach at Northern Illinois University from 2012-2018 and at Temple University from 2019-2021. He had a combined record of 64-50 between his time at the two programs.
His promotion to the Hoosiers’ offensive line coach came immediately after Indiana football announced they had fired then-offensive line coach Darren Hiller, who had been with the program for six seasons.
[Related: Indiana football fires offensive line coach Darren Hiller after six seasons]
“There's a standard we play with and we needed to play with,'' head coach Tom Allen said. "You don't get the results you want, then you make a change.”
Allen and Carey both said the coaching changes are extremely hard on the players, resulting in a melancholy locker room, noting everyone loved Hiller.
“There ain't anything easy about what happened,'' Carey said. “We know the profession, and we understand the profession, but those are real relationships and real people.”
Prior to Allen bringing on Carey as a quality control coach this offseason, the head coach said he didn’t know Carey before hiring him. There was no plan in place to have Carey take over for Hiller during the hire.
“He’s really an offensive line guy,” Allen said. “To be able to utilize that is a positive.”
Carey said his offensive line experience will be beneficial to his new position.
“It's about resistance and repetition,” Carey said. “A lot of the things that I did, I do now.”
This year the Hoosiers’ offensive line has given up a Big Ten conference worst, 19 sacks through the first six games of the season. For the second half of the season, Carey understands there isn’t time for a drastic change to the offensive line and isn’t looking to alter the scheme.
“This isn't a ‘wave of a magic wand’ situation,” Carey said. “I'm not a miracle worker.”
Carey is aware of the challenge he is facing with little time spent with the line and only six games left on the Hoosiers’ regular season schedule. He said he’s going to put his best foot forward in fixing the offense, despite the necessary cleanup, because Allen has faith in him.
Carey said he will have to work hard in adjusting to thinking football in more of an instructive role than that of a player.
“I gotta teach the game of football,” Carey said. “Our guys have a great understanding of football but some of the execution hasn't been at the level we want it at.”
Carey’s offensive line’s first challenge will be Maryland at 3:30 p.m. in Bloomington this Saturday.
“They’re a bright and intelligent group,” Carey said of the offensive line. “They wanna be good.”
