Indiana has a new head football coach.
That can mean only one thing: The Hoosiers have new football helmets too.
After Cam Cameron succeeded Bill Mallory at struggling Indiana in 1997, the new coach changed IU’s crimson helmets to black and added an oval “IU” logo that invited comparisons with that of the San Francisco 49ers. Unfortunately, this was the only aspect of Hoosiers football that invited comparisons with the San Francisco 49ers.
Cameron was fired last winter after his fifth straight losing season. He has been replaced by Gerry DiNardo, who brought back the crimson helmet and added an interlocking “IU” logo in cream.
It’s a snazzy, old-school look.
But it doesn’t seem to matter what the Hoosiers wear. Bottom line: They’re still Hoosiers.
The worst football program in Big Ten history.
“If you just do what’s been done in the past, you are going to repeat history,” the 49-year-old DiNardo said in his Memorial Stadium office.
Down through the years, Indiana has excelled in basketball, soccer and swimming. But when it comes to the Big Ten’s signature sport, it has gone where no other program has gone before.
Indiana’s all-time conference winning percentage is a league-worst .326. The Hoosiers have won 191 Big Ten games, fewer than any original member, and they have only 61 more Big Ten victories than the University of Chicago, which dropped out in 1939.
Indiana is the only Big Ten team never to have scored a touchdown in the Rose Bowl.
The Hoosiers’ football headquarters are, symbolically, buried beneath Memorial Stadium’s east grandstand. Coaches descend a long stairway and are never heard from again.
The last IU coach with a winning record was Bo McMillin, who went 63-48-11 from 1934-47. Nine have come and gone since. It takes a brave coach to tackle that kind of tradition. But bleak as IU’s prospects may appear, it’s not a hopeless cause. Scholarship limits and tougher national academic standards have leveled the Division I-A playing field and helped strengthen other longtime weaklings.
In the Big Ten, Northwestern and Wisconsin have reversed decades of futility. IU’s fiercest rival, Purdue, also went from pushover to Pasadena. And last year Illinois stormed to the Big Ten title 12 months after it finished last.
“What have these schools done?” DiNardo said. “Simply put, they have recruited better players than the people who preceded them.”
Indiana has had some fine players over the years. But even with quarterback Antwaan Randle El, last year’s Silver Football winner and one of the more exciting players in conference history, the Hoosiers managed only 16 wins in four years and failed to draw even the humblest bowl invitation.
Replacing Randle El will be DiNardo’s most immediate challenge. The Riverdale product gained 11,364 total yards in his career and had a hand in 87 touchdowns.
By contrast, the Hoosiers’ returnees at quarterback, running back and wide receiver have accounted for 1,311 yards and eight touchdowns–combined–in college.
Indiana faces stiff competition for talent in its own backyard. It is in the same state as Notre Dame–DiNardo’s alma mater–and Purdue, and shares borders with longtime powerhouses Michigan and Ohio State.
There aren’t enough native sons for the Hoosiers to build a competitive program, so DiNardo will have to lure players from elsewhere.
“I maintain that one way we can close the gap here is to be better evaluators than our opponents,” DiNardo said. “How do you do that? You come as close as you can to the professional model of a department of player personnel, and that’s what we’ve done.”
DiNardo is placing personnel responsibilities on assistant head coach Brian McNeely, younger brother of IU athletic director Michael McNeely and a former assistant to Colorado coach Gary Barnett.
“There’s going to come a point when Brian is more responsible for our player pool than anyone else on our staff,” DiNardo said. “It might be the only model like it in the country.”
It’s a wise move for two reasons. If Indiana’s talent level doesn’t rise, DiNardo may not have to shoulder all the blame. And hiring the athletic director’s brother can never be considered unwise.
But Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue and Illinois didn’t get better simply by recruiting better players. Each of those turnaround stories shared another common thread: a dynamic head coach who wasn’t cowed by the dreadful experiences of his predecessors.
Indiana is hoping DiNardo will be dynamic.
“I think it matters who the head coaches are,” said Michael McNeely, a former staffmate of DiNardo’s at Colorado in the 1980s.
“There’s more parity with scholarship numbers, and that’s made it more balanced. But it’s still the people you put in place. It’s plain old hard work and smart work.”
Indiana gave DiNardo a five-year contract with a $225,000 annual base salary plus guaranteed outside income and performance incentives that could push it to $800,000 per season.
Given DiNardo’s 51-49-1 career record, the deal attracted some notice around the Big Ten. But while DiNardo’s record may seem unimpressive, remember he spent four years at Vanderbilt, which is the Indiana of the Southeastern Conference, at least on the football field.
The Commodores had won five games in the three seasons before he arrived in Nashville in 1991; DiNardo won 18 in four years, earning the Southeastern Conference’s Coach of the Year Award in his first season.
DiNardo converted his success into a job at SEC rival Louisiana State, but his time in Baton Rouge was the ultimate good-news, bad-news experience. The good news: He led the Tigers to 26 victories and three bowl berths in his first three seasons. The bad news: He was fired after two consecutive losing seasons.
When IU hired DiNardo, he was out of work after one year with the Birmingham Thunderbolts of the defunct XFL. “Fiasco is one way to label it,” DiNardo said, shaking his head.
The same label has been applied to IU football.
It has long been believed that schools have to decide whether they want to excel in basketball or football, and then commit the resources to make it happen. But in recent years Maryland, Oklahoma and Oregon have provided coast-to-coast examples of schools excelling in both arenas.
Indiana advanced to the national final of the NCAA basketball tournament last spring. In DiNardo’s view, it’s time for the football program to start making headway in that direction. And the headway will come in new headgear.
“Why can’t we be good at both?” DiNardo said. “I think there are more answers to why we can than why we can’t. It basically comes down to us having good players.”
Big Ten glance at: Indiana Hoosiers
HOME FIELD
Memorial Stadium, Bloomington, Ind.
Capacity: 52,354.
Average home attendance last season: 32,605.
Surface: Grass.
COACHING
Head coach: Gerry DiNardo.
Record: 51-49-1 (first year at IU).
2001 SEASON
Overall record: 5-6.
Big Ten record: 4-4.
2002 SEASON
Bowl prospects: A berth in the Music City or Motor City Bowl would be a terrific achievement for this team.
Returning starters: Offense: 6. Defense: 5. Specialists: 2.
Strength of schedule: Soft. The Hoosiers open with Division I-AA William&Mary. A visit to Utah looks ominous. In the Big Ten, Indiana misses Michigan, which is favored by many to win the league, and trips to Illinois, Northwestern and Purdue are hardly frightening.
SCHEDULE
DATE TEAM TIME
Aug. 31 William & Mary 4 p.m.
Sept. 7 at Utah 7 p.m.
Sept. 14 at Kentucky 6 p.m.
Sept. 21 Central Michigan 4 p.m.
Sept. 28 at Ohio State TBA
Oct. 12 Wisconsin TBA
Oct. 19 Iowa 11 a.m.
Oct. 26 at Illinois 1 p.m.
Nov. 2 at Northwestern TBA
Nov. 9 Michigan State TBA
Nov. 16 Penn State TBA
Nov. 23 at Purdue TBA
Times are Central; subject to change.
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