You're listening to the back home network, presented by home
field apparel. Welcome back to Crimson cast and
emergency episode here on the afternoon of Sunday, the 9th of
October as news coming down, officially, from IU football on
a release. That was put out at about 1:00
on Sunday afternoon, that Tom Allen is letting Darrin Hill
Ergo, the offensive line coach and Run game coordinator for
this IU football program. Since I saw Tom, Allen got to IU
and took over the full time position in 2017 relieved of his
duties and is going to be replaced by Rod carry, which is
an interesting choice for a number of reasons which we'll
talk about. But this is News 4, IU.
If you listen to our now out of date podcast, that we recorded
earlier this morning or really have, you know, just been in the
IU sphere over the course of this season and also last
season, you know, that I use offensive line.
Play has increasingly been the source of a lot of problems for
its offense, and that has been apparent.
Pretty much in every game Indiana's played especially
yesterday. As we saw, I you basically
unable to do anything Possibly in the second half and it just
was a continuation of a long-standing problem.
And, you know, we've talked with some people including Taylor,
Layman, who will talk to hear shortly about the gradual D
evolution of this IU offensive line and the struggles that
they've had over the last few years.
So to some degree, perhaps not a shock that a move comes although
certainly a surprise in terms of the timing of the news coming
essentially at the halfway point.
Into the season and when you think about it, Tom Allen very
much, a guy who focuses on loyalty and it really has tried
to build this very familial atmosphere.
Just a bit of a surprise to watch him fire one of his
offensive coaches during the middle of the season.
However not a choice that I would criticize Alan for I think
something clearly had to be done in terms of the offense of wine
and it Just like if it was just this season, I think you could
probably say. Well let's just try to get
through the season, get to the end and fix things.
But this is an IU team that is still alive for a bowl as hard
as that. Might seem to think about after
what's happened. The last three weeks this team's
three and three, there's four winnable games left on the
schedule and I think clearly at this point Tom Allen looking at
the play of his offensive line and saying this is not going to
get any better unless we do something.
Acetic and something drastic, really needs to be done because,
you know, Indiana does not have the luxury unfortunately to put
themselves in a position where they lose eight or nine games
again in a season. This is a program for a number
of reasons that really has to get its trajectory back up into
at least Bowl contention and pretty really realistically
actual Bowl attendance. So, this looks like a move by
Tom Allen. To try to solidify.
What had essentially been the quicksand position for IU
throughout the course of this whole season, you know, and not
just the offensive line, but it was RA mentioned.
Hillary also the Run game coordinator, that has been a
real problem as well. For this team largely because of
the lack of blocking on the offense of wine but the Run game
in general has really been underwhelming for this Indiana
program. We're going to bring Taylor
Layman on, you know Taylor from appearances on Crimson cast
before he's also the author of Bite-sized bison.
Which did an excellent job of laying out the problems with the
offensive line. Be sure to subscribe to
bite-size bison. You can find all a Tailor's
material on Twitter. It's by Taylor L.
Be sure to follow him, and really kind of presaged
everything that we're about to talk about with this discussion.
So we're going to go ahead and get the Taylor now and talk more
about the news that Darrin Hill has been relieved of his duties.
All right, Taylor. Welcome back to the show.
We were hoping to have you on later on.
This week, but we had to record something immediately.
As the news comes down today, that Darren Hiller's been fired
as offensive line, coach and running game.
Coordinator for IU, I sent this to you via text message.
Your initial reaction to this news.
Oh wow. I think my first reaction was
midseason, I was very surprised. I thought it was first of all, I
wasn't sure if it was going to happen after this season, but if
I thought of it might happen, it would happen after the season
was over not after this week and I halfway through the season.
So I think that was my first reaction but also know that I
talked to you yesterday about the tone that Tom Allen using
his press conference to which kind of shifted.
Things and we had a pretty good conversation about that.
But yeah, it was, you know, it was clear to me, you I remember
very clearly we talked about this on the podcast that we
released but is now very out of date.
We recorded that one at 9:00 this morning and you can go back
and listen to it, anybody that's listening if you want to.
But a lot of what we talked about is is now expired
essentially, but last year, Tom Allen was being very supportive
of Nick Sheridan in the offense for most of the season.
And then there Point late in the season, I think it was the
Minnesota game, perhaps, where he just kind of went nuts in the
press conference like, for Alan, it was among the more negative
things I've ever heard him talk with her about.
Just like, you know, we got to make sure we're actually
throwing the ball properly and like, we're calling the right
plays. And it just at that point, I was
like, all right, it's going to be a shock if Nick Sheridan's
around, you know, any more than a day or two after the end of
this season and as it turned out, they waited until the end
of the season. And then Then fired him almost
immediately and it was the same kind of vibe.
It wasn't directed specifically at Hiller, but you could tell
with Alan's tone after the game yesterday that he was clearly
kind of at his wits end with the offense and the offensive line
and the struggles that they've had I mean we've been talking
about this for a while. This semester this season, you
wrote a great piece in bite-sized bison, kind of laying
out the regression of the offensive line.
Time. Were you surprised that
yesterday's game of all games ended up being the kind of Pivot
Point making Alan decided that he had to make a change right
now? No, I've kind of been thinking
about that because I it's very surprising, you know, Michigan
is a very good team. You wouldn't necessarily
anticipate this offensive line performing well against that
defensive front and honestly I thought, you know, in the
beginning I thought they had a pretty good game plan and I
thought they were performing, you know, okay they were still
performing in spite of their offensive line.
Line in a lot of ways but then it just kind of crumbled in some
very crucial moments. Especially you know when they
couldn't do anything on offense, maybe the defense gave a big
play and you out there thinking, you know, the offense really
needs to push the ball down the field and then there was no
resistance from that offensive line, they had just worn down
throughout the game. And I think also just you know
probably talked about a little bit later but it is don't really
have any answers at right tackle either.
And and So we've talked about development and things like that
in the past but I just thought it a lot of vulnerabilities
specific vulnerabilities in the offensive line really kind of
reared their head later in the game even though they kind of
got off to that hot star and you know play competitively for most
of the game. I I think that might have been a
frustration for Tom Allen as well but it's not like you know
it's not exactly the time I was defense has been playing super
great hits defensive playing super great this year but in
this game it did really feel like you Offensive line kind of
cost them. Some not only just, you know,
points and movement just momentum in general.
When they needed to get momentum, the offensive line
couldn't keep up to create it. Yeah, that was the thing.
It wasn't a situation yesterday where you had the kind of total
systems failure that started the Nebraska game.
For instance, the defense played really well.
And you know, even though the offense played pretty well, it
seemed like they had some good plays, it felt a lot like those
plays were largely. Successful because they were
avoiding the offense of wine. I mean, you had a lot of, let's
throw the ball in the flat especially on the right side.
Let's get our receivers downfield blocking, which only
work for the first half because Michigan was like, well wait, if
we stop that, this should be pretty easy to fix.
And that's exactly what happened.
And once I you had to like stick between the tackles and try to
get a run game going or try to throw conventionally protection,
just broke down and kind of Basil acts back there, you know,
looking away. Away as he's throwing the ball
down the field as he was getting ready to get crushed on several
plays. Its, you know, it's so you look
at this and you say to yourself, okay, it's unusual.
You don't hear a lot about position coaches, getting fired
in the middle of Seasons, which I think to some degree kind of
highlights how critical this is. Because I imagine Tom Allen's
looking at this season and he's saying we've still got the
chance to get to a bowl like it's not out of the question.
Jim. And, you know, I guess my
question for you on that is, do you think that it's possible to
salvage an offensive line that has struggled as mightily as
Indiana's has in the middle of the season?
And at least get it up to the point where you might be able to
score points and pick up a couple of victories.
You know, Galen I've also been think I've been thinking about
this since honestly since I wrote that offensive line piece
because somebody actually did ask me, it's not really in the
same vein of the question that you're asking me right now but
they asked me you know they said that the long-range prognosis is
deflating but how much difference would it make to
spend big money and bring in a new offensive line coach that
would have attracted recruits? And that's kind of got me
thinking like you know what what would happen if you know if like
is this offensive line like you were just asking, so, like to
answer the question, finally, I think that you can scheme them
to put them in better positions, Maybe But offensive line is such
a it's such a slow developing process is it's not really like
you know you can hire you know somebody like a wall fell to
come in and create a different scheme.
Get Playmakers in the right position.
Offensive lines are very, you know, intimate small space a
type of position and it's a it's very much more detailed than
necessarily creating a new offensive system.
It's more like you know this is a years in the making you know
that's That's more what an offensive line is really
difficult to come in and immediately change and offensive
line. But, you know, if you know I'm
not a Rock Aries, taking over maybe Rod.
Kerry has some ideas on ways that he can, you know, different
blocking schemes that maybe suit, the strengths of the
offensive line better. I'm not, I'm not a fantastic
offensive, offensive line mind. But if maybe is seen by Zach,
Carpenter performs a little better at left guard.
Rail seat here. At least he has the last couple
games, maybe they see some strengths there.
Maybe they want to get maybe putting Josh sales at right
tackle long-term and then knowing what he can do well they
just you know work toward that. But as far as like Rising
something or raising some of these this guy, some of these
guys floors, I don't necessarily think that's possible in the
middle of a season but I know I saw your tweet that That Crimson
cast and put out and it was more like this is like a cultural
cultural necessity and I think that's kind of the biggest
impact here. If you know, I mean, it's and
it's tough because and this is where, you know, I mean, players
are going to defend their coaches and teammates are going
to defend other teammates. But you know, you have to be
able I think as a head coach or anybody running an organization.
Like, if there are clear like structural systemic deficiencies
in a department, don't you have to be able to look everybody in
the eye and say, this can't be. We have to be better than this.
We have to make a change in leadership and you know that so
I do I'm with you and it'll be interesting to see if that Spurs
the line collectively into action, maybe gets them playing
a little bit more stably. But as you said it's it is a
difficult situation because it's not just a scheme issue with the
offensive line. That's a development issue.
It's an overall Talent issue, I mean, in the, in the podcast
that we recorded earlier today, you know, I haven't looked at
all the numbers, but we were talking about this, this might
be the worst Power five offensive line in college
football this year. And it's it's that's I don't
know if that's recoverable, but at the very least, I think you
send a message at this point that look, you know, the excuses
are done like we have to play better than this.
There's no excuse for playing this poorly.
Lie. And you know, the head person in
charge of that position. Group certainly has a huge
amount to say and do about that. So maybe that has some kind of
an intellectual or emotional impact more than anything else I
do. Yeah just sorry go ahead.
Oh no I was going to say I think you're I think you're correct
and your assessment that they are probably the worst offensive
line unit in the power 5. But also you know it's also just
a matter of kind of mentioned this earlier but It just seems I
got some positions, they don't really have an answer and if
you're in your 6th year and you don't really have an answer when
somebody goes down with an injury or somebody's not
performing the way that they should be.
Then that's that, just means that you haven't done your job
effectively as the offensive line coach.
And so I think that's that's that's a it's a message sent to
the team or or to everyone honestly that you know at this
point you would expect even an Indian Hannah to have some sort
of standard and these in the specific scenario for what you
want your where you want your team, where you want your
program to be and the big tent. But yeah, I think I think you're
probably correct. The question that I think I've
seen the most in the immediate aftermath of this announcement
and this was actually one of the things we talked about a lot on
the earlier show. Why not make this move in the
offseason and this was something that Zach.
Osterman, is peace in the Star. This morning, I thought really
did a good job of bringing out and Dustin to appear a cast.
A really good question in the press conference which is what
led to the answer that got me thinking that this could be a
possibility. But, you know, Zach.
And this was something we saw from a lot of coverage of IU.
Was this idea that last year had been an aberration and that
Allen had had these really deep and tough conversations with
everybody involved, players, coaches, whatever, and he felt
good about Hiller and his ability to turn around the
offensive line. I mean, I guess the question is
like, does that sound plausible and, and did it seem like a good
reason to maintain the status quo, especially when Assistant
coach moves were made at a bunch of different positions within
the IU family. Like if you were you know it's
interesting because obviously there was a clear cultural clash
between Allen and Charlton Warren about the defense but the
defense wasn't bad last year. You know that was a defense that
played pretty well yet. They made a change there and you
know you you'd like to give Alan the benefit of the doubt when he
says well you know, we had a really hard to heart and felt
like the things we're Going to get better, but it also that
feels like a real missed opportunity for IU, you know,
because if you feel like you make a change in the offseason,
you got a chance to restructure, maybe bring some new players in
and maybe that results in you being able to, you know, pick up
that Nebraska Victory, as opposed to losing that game.
You know, maybe that puts you in a slightly better position, in
terms of your overall, offensive presence as you head into the
second half of the Season. It just a People like think
rightfully. So we're going to look at Allen
and say well you know not not congratulations on making the
move but it's like what took you so long because this seemed like
the end result that was always going to be in the cards based
upon what we saw the last six seasons whether or not you made
the move halfway through the year or had to make the move at
the end of the year. And he also and my thoughts who
is he also might have thought the same thing about that.
This might be coming if he was making the move, if he makes a
move now in the middle of the Season, you know, maybe He
thought all along that this could have been a possibility in
the first place, which in then when brings begs the question
again, like you're just asking why not make the move in the
offseason beforehand. Yeah, I don't know if maybe he
just wanted some continuity from previous offenses, offensive
schemes, and offensive regimes. He's had in his tenure I or I
mean if you do if you look at some of the path, the offensive
line is kind of taken the plan that Darrin Hill As had, you can
kinda, it's like if you want to get the benefit of the doubt a
timeout. And you can kind of see where he
might have, believed in Darrin Hill, or it might have, you
know, kind of invested stock and Aaron Hill, or long term
especially given during his previous resume as well, but
Yeah, it's really hard. It kind of felt like it kind of
felt like to everyone that the writing was on the wall.
So why not? Why not, for Tom Island.
Yeah, it's it's going to be one of those big questions.
And, you know, I'm sure it goes back to some feelings of
loyalty, but this is where the struggles come in.
And, and this is where to some degree.
I think Alan has not been. If you're going to have a
criticism of him as a manager of people and a manager of the
program, he has been kind of slow on the trigger.
With would have looked like necessary.
Is going all the way back to Mike deboard as offensive
coordinator and a lot of the frustrations that surrounded
that, you know, it's going to be really fascinating thing because
they're kind of lucky here. They have Rod carry on staff,
you'll former head coach former IU player who's going to slide
in and you know, has a good track record with offensive line
coaching in general. So you know, you are very
fortunate that you've got someone in the building, they
can take over it. It's just, it's going to be
really interesting how all of that plays out as we move ahead.
And it just, you think we'll gosh.
If you're going to go out and hire a new offensive coordinator
which they did this offseason, it's like give maybe give that
person. Their choice of people that they
want to work with in these sorts of roles.
And always, it's just they're just some puzzling Personnel
decisions that were made and it has been one of those things
where you kind of scratch your head and you're like, it feels
like a times. This has taken some of the
potential out of where this Indiana team.
Could be because of either hanging on too long to a coach
or not making a change when it was clear that a change needed
to be made. Yeah.
Yeah and you know, kind of, you know, when we talk about know,
there's been a lot of talk about momentum of the program and when
you like you were just saying, you know, you want to give Walt
Bill. His guys, you want you want him
to allow to bring people in instead of like kind of patch
working an offensive staff together.
Like it seems like it's been, you know, the entire time I land
tenure honestly. Then you know as you're making
those changes you know why not give while Bell his guys went
out a lot while belt to bring in his guys immediately.
So you're not wasting this season and it kind of just you
know when you waste Seasons it's not good for the moment of my
program. Well, it's just an interesting
note from our own Griffin Gonzales earlier today, since
the beginning of the 2019 season, I you as had one head
coach three offensive, Nader's three defensive coordinators,
three running backs, coach has to wide receiver coach has one
offensive line coach, and, and it's just, it is interesting
that there's been, you know, some of those folks have left
for better programs and Griffin notes that obviously, but there
just hasn't been a lot of continuity in terms of coaching.
And, you know, I use been for IU good during that period.
But it's not like they're, you know, regularly winning nine or
ten games and and are like the the tree from which you want to
pluck the fruit of the next generation of coaches.
So I mean I do sometimes wonder about that because there's been
stability in areas where they're probably shouldn't have been and
then there's been churn in places where you would hope for
a little more stability with with Allen's program thus far.
Yeah. And I think, you know, as you
were saying like some of the previous position coaches have
left for better jobs and maybe he just reflects, you know,
maybe just reflects how other programs view Darren Hillary.
He also didn't leave for a better job.
I Yeah. I'm not I'm not exactly sure.
I'm not exactly sure. Why why he kept them on other
than just the the Loyalty or maybe even just the just the
camaraderie that comes with having somebody that you have
worked with, you know, very deep into your past which a lot of
those guys have moved on from IU that had Tom Allen had initially
brought on. Yeah, I yeah I don't know I
think there's going to be a lot more that comes to light about
this as the The rest of the year goes on, I think it's gonna be
like you said, it needs to be really curious to see, you know,
if Ron Carey is somebody who they you know kind of maybe
biked as an offensive line coach anyway and already had them on
in case you know something like this were to happen.
I don't know. It'll be interesting moving
forward. I've already been thinking about
how Rod carries going to affect the program.
Yeah, from this position. So well as I think, most people
would argue You, it's hard to Envision it getting any worse
with this move and and there is the possibility of it getting
better. And at the end of the day, I
think Tom Allen is looking at this and saying, look, we this,
this program can't afford to straight losing Seasons or two
straight Seasons where you've lost like eight or more games
like, at the very least you got to be in the bowl conversation,
it's too easy to lose recruiting momentum and if you can make a
change, and it has even a marginal positive impact, and
maybe turns, You know, a Rutgers game or Purdue game from A Loss
into a win, then it was worth it.
And even if it doesn't, it was probably worth the dice roll
because if it was I think of anything was clear to me, it was
that this line was not going to get better under the current
regime as the season went along. And in fact, I think, you know
as to some degrees we saw with Michigan yesterday, the book is
out on how Indiana's playing offense of wine, Michigan, was
doing a lot of damage with for pass rushers or five.
Yesterday, it wasn't like they were overwhelming with blitzes,
you know, you've got, you're going to have trouble against
Michigan's in Ohio, State's like that.
But against lesser teams, that can't take advantage of that.
They have a lot of film now that they can scheme off of Indiana
and something had to change as things move forward.
So one last thing, I guess for you on this is, you know, what
do you think? Indiana ultimately can do there.
They've struggled in both run blocking and Pass blocking.
And obviously, there's some things you can do scheme wise to
affect one of the other. You mentioned a couple of things
earlier, about trying to stabilize who's playing and what
roles. But, you know, in these sorts of
situations, you'll can you try it?
Can you say look, we're going to, we're going to have to make
a living through the air. Like the chances of us making a
living on the ground is low. So we have to figure out a way
to stabilize what we're doing with that or is this just a
situation where you're just kind of throwing the dice and hoping
something positive happens out of this without really being
Being able to necessarily focus on one area or another.
Yeah, I think well, I think there's a lot of experimenting
that are probably go into this with a lot of the younger guys.
We gotta look at Josh sales against Michigan and it wasn't
great. You know, he had a really bad
day and past walking which was surprising to me.
I thought I thought he was a much better pass blocker, but I
guess it and, you know, it is Michigan.
So moving forward against teams like like Maryland next week
Josh doesn't have a better game there but I think just getting
some of those younger guys and trying to get them developed as
quickly as possible. You know, which is one of those
things where you know that's probably why they didn't really
want them on the fields. They didn't really like how far
along they had been developed but I yeah I just think what you
do is you get your best pass blockers out on the field you
pass and that you know, obviously Michigan was able to
stop the you know, the Plans that I you had to the passing
game early in the game, they were able to stop it in the
second half and that's why Indiana was playing so poorly on
offense, because what are they going to do?
Run into Michigan. It's so you know yeah there's
just very little there's very little that they can do in my
opinion to really improve this offensive line no matter who the
head coaches and I think just I just think that really caught up
with Darren Hiller. I just think the the
construction of this line Is really what caught up with
Darren Hiller less. So the performance of the line
this year, I think just I think the performance of the line this
year just highlighted, the incompetence in the construction
of the line and the years leading up to this season.
And so I don't think that there is going to be much of a change
that you can make this going to make it better.
But as far as what you can do to make it better for the future
just keep developing the young guys because they do have
talent, they have talent on this roster, they have offensive line
Talent so they just need to develop it and and I don't know
if I don't And Heather was great at that and there's no evidence
that he was great at that. So maybe somebody else will
really well. And there was news that came
down just a little bit ago that one of the three star recruits
Bubba Jeffries is going to. He's maintaining his commitment
to IU despite Hiller's firing which is important.
I mean, you know, and I think it's important.
Keep in mind, you know, you can, you need three star, offensive
line prospects. That's the level that Indiana is
going to be able to recruit at you.
Probably not going to get a lot higher than that, but you can
build with those folks. It's just a matter of as you
were just talking about having a good setup for those players to
play in and having a consistent level of development as you go
forward. So we'll see what happens with
all of this as a big news. Obviously a news that a lot of
IU fans. I think we're hoping to hear and
waiting to hear. So any final thoughts Taylor,
before we wrap up, I just I'm just kind of excited to see
where the offensive line goes from here.
I'm I noticed yesterday that there is a little bit of a nerd.
So this earlier there's there is a little bit of some rotations
and with the offensive lineman in the middle of the game, it
was very surprising to me and I was kind of encouraged by that
it seemed like they weren't sticking to what they were doing
before. So now that you know, Rod
carries the offensive line coach maybe Walt Bell has some
controlled that maybe he didn't have before something.
I'm excited to see how all of this kind of changes the way
that the offensive line operates at a very basic level and then
what happens after the season. So yeah, I'm kind of a few a
little more energized, even Oh, it's not going to be great this
season. The rest of the season, I feel
more in a little more energized about the offensive line.
Yeah, I'm not expecting Miracles as we were talking about, but I
am interested to see if there are some tangible changes.
It may be. I mean, it's interesting because
they've got two games that are actually I think good to start
with, because it may end up giving this offensive line, a
feeling like they're getting better, even if they aren't
necessarily because, you know, Maryland just lost at home to
Purdue. That's not an unbeatable team by
any means Rutgers. Obviously is struggling quite a
bit. That's two, very winnable games.
You know, if you're able to come in and win both of those games
that completely changes the outlook on the season and as we
talked about so much with this IU team, so much of their
playing, well tends to lean on them, seeing results of what
they're doing and feeling like they're making a difference.
And so the hope would be that perhaps with the timing is it is
right now, there's a chance that they can use that as a Runway
and and gain some altitude. Far as their play is concerned.
So anyway, Taylor I really appreciate you jumping on at the
last second as I couldn't get a hold of Scott and I was like we
got to put something out but but thank you as always and we
appreciate your insights on stuff and look forward to
reading more of you as we move forward.
Yeah things have me on Galen is fun.
Absolutely. Thanks to all you folks for
listening in. We'll be back later in the week
with more IU football content as the Hoosiers.
Make a big change on their offensive coaching staff.
And we'll see what kinds of results.
If any that helps to produce For Taylor.
Layman. I'm Galen clavijo.
This is Crimson cast catching folks on the flip side, bring
back the Bison, so everybody