Loading ...Lynch: Glass has continued to be supportive
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by Dustin Dopirak | Monday, November 22, 2010 - 3:27 pm UTC
Though Bill Lynch’s job would certainly appear to be in peril with one year remaining on his contract and a 12-game Big Ten losing streak hanging around his neck, the Indiana football coach said at his weekly press conference on Monday that athletic director Fred Glass, the man who will have to make the decision on Lynch’s future, has stayed behind him.
“His support has been unbelievable,” Lynch said. “We’ve had a great relationship and everything that he’s said has been exactly what it’s been throughout the year. He’s been as supportive as can be, week-by-week.”
Glass did not immediately return a call about Lynch’s status.
Lynch said he’s not at all concerned about whether Saturday’s game against Purdue will be his last as the head coach.
“I’m worried about Purdue,” he said. “Just like I was worried about Penn State. That’s my job.”
Senior quarterback Ben Chappell admitted, however, that the players are starting to become concerned.
“We’re probably trying to put ourselves in a black hole as much as possible and we’re in the grind and week-by-week trying to win football games on Saturday,” Chappell said. “But we’re all not dumb. … It’s tough. I think you feel kind of personally responsible because we’re the guys who are playing. I think he’s done a great job of getting us prepared every week. We’ve said this a lot where it’s come down to very few plays where if one of us steps up and makes a play, we have some different outcomes. That’s obviously tough, but I have the ultimate respect for coach. I love playing for him, and I’d do anything for him.”
Tyler Replogle didn’t acknowledge the elephant in the room in quite as straightforward of a fashion.
“We’ve been trying to win for Coach Lynch all year,” Replogle said. “We talk as players all the time. We love Coach Lynch. We want to go undefeated for him because he means the world to us. But you try to win for him every week, and I think that’s what we’ve tried to do. If there’s anything left that we can give more, we’re going to try to.”
Other Notes from Lynch’s press conference:
- Lynch said he will most likely continue to use Chappell and redshirt freshman Ed Wright-Baker at quarterback. He also said that Wright-Baker’s fellow backup Dusty Kiel is still out with a thumb injury. “I think they probably both will play a little bit,” Lynch said. Now how much, I don’t know. Last week was different in the sense that two things happened. One, Dusty got hurt. Now all the sudden, Dusty was not an option in the thing, and we really didn’t know if Ben would make it through the game. So we had to have a plan going into it. So it was Ed, and so we had a plan that I think we probably felt 10-12 plays. As it turned out, what was it? Fourteen? I think it was something like that. It could’ve been more if Ben didn’t make it. Ben practiced, but we didn’t really know. He was banged up. We knew he was about one hit from going down. We wanted to have a good plan in effect for Ed.”
- Lynch said he didn’t think he needed to do any additional motivation for Saturday’s game because it’s the Old Oaken Bucket Game or because the Boilermakers have won the last two and won 62-10 in the last game at Purdue. “That takes care of itself,” Lynch said. “I think if you overdo it, then you get your guys playing out of their normal routine. There isn’t a need to do that. Our guys know how important this game is. They know it’s their last game. It’s the seniors last game. They know how important it is to win this game, to get the Bucket back here, a way to finish this season off that has had it’s tough times and disappointments, but certainly would finish on a high note. You don’t have to conjure anything up to try to get them excited for this game.”
With $2 million a year committed to a head coach IU can get one of these guys: Rich Rodriquez, Turner Gill, Randy Shannon, Dan Mullen, Paul Rhoads, Brady Hoke, Ken Niumatalolo or Kevin Sumlin. Rodriguez, Gill and Shannon are all considered to be vulnerable and if anyone of them were to be fired IU would have to consider hiring them.
Fellas,
Screw the debate about Lynch and just BEAT PURDUE!
Can’t we all just rally together around that?
sixthmanning needs to realize we don’t have that type of money for a football coach
we sold a football game to get $2.3 million
Nick Saban is not a nice guy. Neither is Urban Meyer. Bill Belichek? Not so much. Not even Vince Lombardi. Bobby Knight? Uh, no. Oops that’s basketball. We may not get a good coach who you want to sit around the fire with. I can live with that.
IU receives $6.5 million a year from the Big Ten Network. The Athletic Department just spent $3 million on new scoreboards. The North End Zone cost $40 million. Why do all this and not spend top dollar on a coach?
Since so much of this issue about being able to afford a quality coach revolves around our major athletic programs’ ability to generate revenue, consider this small glimmer of hope…
Basketball doesn’t bring in nearly the same revenue that football COULD, but we’ve drastically underperformed in basketball since 2003 = lost TV revenue from pre-& post-season tourneys. As Crean continues to ratchet up the hoops squad, it directly affects the total athletic dept budget and makes it more and more feasible to invest in a quality football staff.
So Kansas is going to fire Turner Gil after one year?
Randy Shannon can’t win with Florida-based talent and we think he can win with our talent pool?
+ Thesixthmanning- in 2008=09 IU received $22,992,233 from the Big 10 and made a profit of $5,483,601. We can afford a GOOD coach!
+ Yeagleyball- IU’s income from basketball goes up EVERY year since 2003 including 2008 and 2009 which were NO exception!
+ Jubilee-did you hear-IU made $5,483,601 in 2008-09. We have PLENTY of money for a GOOD coach!
+ Hoosier Smitty- I can walk AND chew gum! Beat Purdue AND fire the entire coaching staff and bring in an exciting new coach like Hep (who is still the ONLY reason that we have marginally improved! But Hep died and we can only milk his legacy for so long!)!
IU can easily afford to pay for whomever tops their list.
BeatPurdue,
Do you have a link for IU’s finances? I wouldn’t mind taking a look at them. Then if proven wrong, I’ll pull a 4G.
If I remember correctly, former coach Sampson and his former assistants were paid nearly one million dollars to leave, though their violation of NCAA rules probably constituted sufficient cause to terminate their contracts. Likewise, I believe the former Athletic Director Greenspan was also paid a “bonus” to leave.
Two million is not big money and, as in the [correct] termination in the Sampson case, there are probably alumni and supporters out there who would happily finance the cost if it would bring a good, solid coach to bring good success to the program.
The question is what guarantee would there be for “value received” for such a sum? And, there is also the guarantee of transparency in the decision to neutralize the ambitions, agenda and power of any one trustee (or coalition of any 2 or 3)as was the case in the hiring of Sampson.
Transparency and an open process in the decisions to be made are critical to accountability to guarantee future outcomes.
The Indy Star has the NCAA Financial Reports Database. USA Today also has a College Athletics Finance Database.
Jubilee, check out this database from USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/ncaa-finances.htm?loc=interstitialskip
Once you select an academic year, you can select Indiana from the next pull down box. For 2008-2009 year, IU’s athletic dept. profit was listed at nearly $5.5mil. I’d say there’s likely some room to pay a football coach.
Regardless of whether IU can or can not “afford” to pay for a quality coach, sooner or later IU is going to have to take some financial risk and invest in a quality coach that can compliment the $40 Mil investment on the stadium upgrade and the new score board. Sooner or later, IU is going to have to take a leap-of-faith on a coach, because being miserly with a weak coach (the Lynch model) will render those previous investments worthless and a total waste of money. Most people don’t go to football games to see the stadium and look at state-of-the-art scoreboards.
Given the financial ramifications, it’s hard to understand how a University can pay a basketball coach over $2 million a year and then pay the coach of what should be your biggest revenue producing sport about a third of that salary. Tradition notwithstanding, we’re talking simple business judgement. Football should generate a lot more revenue than BB, even at Indiana. You have to get good management in place in order to maximize R.O.I.
I supported IU paying Crean all that money and I believe he will prove to have been worth it. But it’s just stupid not to make the same level of investment in a football coach.
Mr Glass, its time to man-up, pull the trigger, and go long for a good coach. You can’t afford not to.
I’m with Smitty…I’ll care about the coaching staff on November 29. Let’s stick a boot up Purdue’s rear end and, if the staff is indeed done, send them out on a rare good note.
Guys, like HoosierSmitty says this is the few days of the year when we don’t need to be bitching about Lynch. Let’s beat Purdue, then next week at this time we can worry about hiring Brad Childress or Vince Lombardi, or (hopefully) keeping Coach Lynch because he just beat Purdue 83-10.
I hope to hell there is no one, regardless if IU beats Purdouche 83-10 that would “hope” to keep Lynch!
IU hs plenty of money, dont you small, uninformed people think otherwise
sixthmanning,
You don’t want randy shannon. No one has done less with so much talent. I know you were just using his name as an example, but there are a lot of rumblings that he is gone after this year, just as he should be.
Am i wrong, or did IU actually lose $836k last year?
I was just looking at the difference between their revenues and expenses off indystar.com
Jubilee. The link is: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/ncaa-finances.html.
IU athletics was one of only 14 Athletic Departments that operated in the black last year.
IU football had a profit just under 600K according to an article in the Harrisburg Patriot-News’ written by David Jones. A link to that article is in last Friday’s Hoosier morning.
IU Men’s basketball was 8.9 million in the black for 2009-2010 according to the same article.
What does this all mean? FIRE LYNCH! The money is there to buy him out and hire a real coach. Lynch’s only success was in D2 & D3 ball.
Jubilee, sorry about so many typos, but the last link works. The Indy Star info is OLD, for 2004-05, Indiana’s last year in the red. The USA Today info covers up to 2008-09: Total Revenues $61,136,237, Total Expenses $55,652,636 = Profit $5,483,601.
Tsao Tsu Gonzalez, excluding the assistants and Greenspan, you have to remember that IU didn’t pay all of Sampson’s buyout which was $750,000. $550,000 of that was paid by an anonymous donor (whom I personally believe to have been Mark Cuban), only costing IU $200,000 for him.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3258506
However, I do completely agree that we do have the money to pay for a higher profile coach. But, at the same time I don’t know about getting rid of Lynch just yet. If Kellen Lewis hadn’t wasted away his extra chances, had his head on straight and led this team I don’t think we’d be having this discussion. Before getting kicked off the team for his SR year, he had threw more touchdown passes (48) than any player in school history and was third in passing yards (6,395) and second in total yards (8,072) in the Indiana record book. These stats were mostly before Chappell shared time with Lewis under center during Lewis’s Junior year!
My point? Edward Wright-Baker, will be starting next year with Dustin Kiel in tow. Both of these QB’s ranked 3 stars while Chappell was only 2 stars. I think at least 1 more year with Lynch is justified to see if higher ranked QB’s bring more success. I’m excited to see Wright-Baker play next year. I think he will make the offense exciting again. Will there be mistakes, sure. But, I think we’ll be in for a treat.
We also have Tre Roberson from Lawrence Central as a verbal, another 3 star QB who will be playing for the Class 5A State Title this weekend. Scout.com still has our recruiting class for 2011 ranked 36. Armonze Daniel a 4 star linebacker from Avon, IN is undeclared and still considering us. If Lynch goes, who knows what happens. Could we get better? Yes. But, we could also get much worse, like Gerry DiNardo worse…. My feeling is honor the contract and if half way through the Big Ten schedule next year we’ve improved then give an extension, if not then he can be removed as his contract will have expired. At least an incoming coach would know that we will give him a fair chance.
Mike W, you make some interesting points and I agree with perhaps retaining Lynch CONDITIONED on replacing coaching staff on Defense and Special Teams.
Yeah, we don’t want our players to play out of their “normal” routine because it has been so effective.
Mike W; glass has two choices. Either he fires Lynch (smart) of he extends his contract. He can’t simply “hornor” the current contract, because it would devastate recruiting and weaken the chance of hiring a good coach the next year. So if you support keeping Lynch, it’s because you think he can turn IU football into a competitive Big Ten team. Based on his last three years, how do you justify that belief? The program is getting weaker, not stronger. His recruits have proven to below Big Ten quality talent (in general), and his team suffered the worst defeat in DI college football in 60 years.
If there has ever been a justification to fire a coach, they don’t get much better than the results of IU’s 2010 IU season.