How Bill Lynch earned the job at IU

As Peegs, Decker, the Star, et al have revealed, Bill Lynch will have the intern label removed from his name and he will be the "official" head coach of the Indiana University football program. Now, let the fans cheer, foam at the mouth, boo, hiss, and argue until the bowl game, and then continue all that to fall practice. Each fan has an opinion on Lynch, as they have a right too. His past coaching gigs haven't really produced the greatest results, save his one year stint at DePauw University. So I thought I would give some the main criteria of why he was retained, what good he brings to the table, and what some of the goals are for this program.

First, Lynch was thrust into an extremely difficult situation, and I don't think anyone could muster a big arguement against that. First off, he had to right the sinking ship emotionally with the kids. When dealing with emotions, both long and short term, with 18, 19, 20, and 21 year old kids, you are in for a roller coaster ride on some of the simple things, let alone death. After dealing with the kids, he had to bring them together. Sure, some leaders on the team stepped up, but ultimately, you rise and fall with the coach, intern or not. Then the coaches had to come together and recruit. Losing a coach is bad enough, but in the off season, you have to keep the kids coming and still recruit for the future. Finally, Coach Lynch has to continue to somehow get the new "energy" to stay there, in other words, stoke the fire that Hep and built and continue to burn.

After Coach Hep pasted, Rick Greenspan, and then President, Adam Herbert met with Coach Hep and put together a strategic plan for this season and what it would take for Bill Lynch to be retained as the permenant head coach. Greenspan didn't want Coach Lynch wondering toward the end the season, so they set specific goals for the program to obtain. It was pretty simple, if all the goals were met, Lynch would be retained, but if one or all were not met, then a nation wide search would begin. So here where the Top 4 goals:

1. Continue to maintain the Grade Point Average that was set up as a team goal (don't know what that was exactly).

2. The program needed to stay clean, as in no kids getting in trouble and especially no NCAA violations. Obviously when we are talking about kids getting in trouble, we mean with the law. speeding and parking tickets are one thing, but alcohol violations, fighting, etc was not exceptable.

3. The program must obtain a winning record for the season.

4. The program was to reach bowl eligibility and go to a bowl game.

Those were the 4 main goals for Lynch. There were a couple of other minor goals, but they were personel so I won't share them. Obviously, Greenspan and Hep wanted to build the program by going the "Student-Athlete" route. That means you are students and citizens of bloomington first, and football players second. You must be a good student and citizen before you can be a winning football player. Coach Hep believed that you could achieve great things on the field, but if you failed as a student and a citizen, then it really didn't mean that much. I'm not sure to many coaches have that philosphy. They may "say" they do, but reality is most don't really. Coach Lynch is a lot like Hep in his regard to believing in the student athlete approach.

Now, what good things will come from Lynch being named HC. Well, the biggest thing is recruiting. Coach Lynch really has a rappaport with the coaches in the state of Indiana. I talked to one coach at the Class A state championship and his quote was pretty simple. To paraphrase his remarks, he said that with Coach Lynch heading the football program, IU will clean up in the state of Indiana year in, year out. We'll see if that holds true. While some will say IU isn't a "football state", it's quickly becoming a state that produces on average of 15 DI kids each year and that number is climbing. With the success of the Colts, and the downturn of the Pacers, I truly expect the football in this state to rise and rise. More athletes will want to pursue the gridiron over the hardwood due to the attention that the Colts have brought to this state.

Also, there are several kids on the fence so to speak with IU in terms of committing or decommitting from other programs to IU. They have waited for this to play out and it is believed that we will see new committments from a couple of big names in a couple of weeks. December 8th is looming as a pretty big weekend from what I've been told by a couple of sources. Regardless, I don't expect us to lose any of our 15 verbals and I fully expect us to get as many as 10 more kids on board by the signing period. Obviously, this means we will oversign a bit, but that shouldn't be that surprising.

Coach Lynch also brings stability to the program. Of course, some will feel he's not a big name, or his past record is a problem and those are valid points. However, I remember the message boards when Coach Hep was hired. Some liked it, some didn't, some said we'll see, and well, that's really all we can do here. There's no guarentee Coach Lynch will work out, just like there was no guarentee Coach Hep would work out. Heck, IU could have hired Coach Spurrier, and really no body could guarentee anything with him either. The difference in my mind between a "proven" coach and the ones like Coach Lynch or Coach Hep is HOPE! If IU was to go out and pay a ton of money to a proven or unproven guy, some would just have more HOPE than a guy that's willing to come in for a smaller deal. Hope is what drives message boards, it's what drives a lot of things, but after a year or two, hope dimishes and results take over. I'm not sure you can find a coach that has dealt with as much adversity as Coach Lynch has this season. He deserves coach of the year, but of course he won't get it. No coach in the country had a to endure the emotion roller coaster he did and still somehow, someway, produced a winning product and a group of kids that are on pace to shatter their GPA goal.

Also, Coach Lynch brings perserverence to this program. I don't think we will have to worry about him bailing out when times get tough. Coach Lynch and staff wasn't perfect this season, they made mistakes, the made the wrong calls, but in the end, they were 7 and 5 and have us firmly in the bowl game picture.

Finally, as far as goals go, I think what is set forth in the interm will be expected to continue throughout the contract. Off the field, the players need to stay relatively clean, graduate, and NCAA violations cannont rear their ugly heads. On the field, bowl eligibility must remain consistant as well as winning records.

To close, I personally want to say that I believe this will turn out for the best at IU. This university needs consistancy and stability. As I blogged a few weeks ago, changing coaches every 3 to 5 years doesn't work. Look at Nebraska, Ole Miss, et al, they are a joke of their pasts. I'm not saying the coaches they fired, should not have been, but you can't build a tradition in 3 years. A tradition takes time, patience, and yes, even a little bit of luck. Regardless, IU has built a foundation, they've committed to new facilities, to a "spread" offense and attacking defense. Now, let the floors of the institution be built upon that foundation!