Dusty Kiel leaves Indiana football program; Ed Wright-Baker to follow?
by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Jan 14, 2012 6:22 PM EST
in Indiana Hoosiers Football
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One of the few happy story lines of Indiana 1-11 2011 football season was the emergence of true freshman quarterback Tre Roberson. Roberson ended up on the field because of injuries to Dusty Kiel and Edward Wright-Baker, but Roberson held the job even when the other two QBs were healthy. Now, Zach Osterman of Inside Indiana reports that Kiel will leave the program. This isn't a huge surprise. Kiel's brother Gunner Kiel decommitted from IU in October and eventually committed to LSU. In addition to Roberson's emergence, a junior college quarterback, Cameron Coffman, recently enrolled at IU and will have three years of eligibility remaining (and could redshirt as well).
Kiel did not stand out during his limited playing time. In 99 attempts in his career, he completed 34 passes for 498 yards 3 TD, and 3 interceptions. Wright-Baker, who also is rumored to be out the door, was a bit better in 2011, completely nearly 60 percent of his passes, but neither could match Roberson's running ability. It remains to be seen whether the future will be with Roberson, Coffman, or someone else at the helm, but it's pretty obvious that Kiel and Wright-Baker probably faced long odds to start again. Best of luck to both of them. Football coverage has been lacking here recently, but with signing day approaching, expect a post in the near future about IU's recruiting class and other matters.
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Kiel-hauled.
Of all my teams (Indiana Hoosiers, Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Cowboys, Dallas Stars), it’s Hoosier football that would make me happiest if they succeeded. Still waiting for something good to happen.
A sassy, brassy, classy lassy.
by LoneStarHoosier on Jan 14, 2012 7:21 PM EST reply actions
This is not at all surprising. The hire of Wilson was extremely questionable and he has put IU football so far in the crapper that it’s going to be years before the program is okay again. Expect another 1-11 season or maybe 2-10 and a bunch of transfers again. Noone wants to play for this guy because he is a total a-hole. My close friend is a S&C Coach and said he is the worst and none of the coaches around campus like him at all, unlike Crean, who most love. Wilson is the only coach on campus who walks into the weight room bitching about how dirty and crappy it is. I liked Lynch. Wish Lynch would’ve got another year.
by Gators1 on Jan 15, 2012 12:27 AM EST via mobile reply actions
I think Lynch and Wilson are two separate issues. If Bill lynch couldn’t eke out a bowl bid with Chappell, Doss, Belcher, etc., then I have no confidence that he would have done better in 2011 than he did in 2010. Sure, given the lack of attrition and turnover he probably would have done better than 1-11, but I don’t think there was any reason that IU should have stuck with Lynch if the school is serious about winning football games.
As for Wilson, he certainly has an abrasive personality, but I will worry when the guys who came to play for him leave because they don’t like him. I think Wilsohimself has acknowledged that he has some things to learn about being a head coach, but I’m certainly a long way from giving up.
The Crimson Quarry, SB Nation's Indiana Hoosiers blog
by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Jan 15, 2012 8:05 AM EST up reply actions
This is Indiana, man. No one man is going to "put IU football in the crapper" when it's been there for its entire history.
I’m reserving my judgement until at least three years have passed.
Alabama and Florida seem to have done well with prick coaches. We’ll see what happens.
A sassy, brassy, classy lassy.
by LoneStarHoosier on Jan 15, 2012 9:26 AM EST up reply actions
I don’t know much about the history of IU football since I just moved to Bloomington recently, but I do know a few years back you were at a bowl game so I wouldn’t consider that to be in the crapper. But 1-11 without a single win over a FBS school is putting them in the crapper, especially if that hasn’t happened anytime recently.
And please. Don’t bring Saban & Meyer into a convo about Wilson. Saban & Meyer have done well everywhere they went. Wilson wasn’t even a OC by himself at Oklahoma and what happened to Oklahoma when they had to play a good defense? They got shut down. It was a bad hire. You don’t have to admit that right now, but I bet you will within 2 years. Oh well. Like you said, you have had to live thru so many bad years, that this is nothing new. Thankfully the Basketball program is back. They are a joy to watch.
if it’s possible, I semi-agree with both of the above posts. Indiana football, although it has had its bright moments, in no way could one call the program a model organization, especially over the last twenty years. I think more telling than the team’s record since Bill Mallory’s departure is how football is at best an afterthought in the IU community. That doesn’t mean, however, that Indiana should just accept their place as a basketball first football completely forgotten school. I was a student at IU during the transition from Gerry DiNardo to Terry Hoeppner and the change from an aloof and somewhat standoffish coach to an outgoing coach with seemingly boundless energy and optimism was staggering. Sure, there wasn’t a vast improvement on the field (if I remember right, the team went from 3-8 to 4-7 in Hoeppmer’s first year) but more importantly people were actually caring about Indiana football, and the improvements to the Football facilities on campus are the fruits of those efforts. Sure, one shouldn’t make final judgment on one’s first year (Mallory went 0-11 in his first year, with a team that possibly had more talent than what Wilson had this past season) but at the same time the seemingly constant exodus of assistants, players, and recruits along with alienated media and the number of stories coming out about people who have had negative run ins with Wilson on campus is at least concerning.
All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia
by Veni Vidi Vici on Jan 15, 2012 8:12 PM EST up reply actions
the exodus of coaches, players and recruits
is natural in a regime change. It does get a little more exaggerated though when you change from a players first coach to a program first. I loved Lynch as a person but he was way too lenient and soft on his players. They pretty well did what they wanted when they wanted. The only reason it didn’t get a lot of press is because they were terrible and no one cared. If the basketball team was doing what some of the football team was doing Crean would have been canned pretty quickly.
Wilson is cracking down on that and you can see the bad apples making their way elsewhere. Now not all the defectors are bad apples. Kiel for instance is a very nice guy and well respected among the athletic community at IU, but it is obvious IU has nothing to offer his football career. This is a transfer that would have happened if you had the pope running the team. Kiel is doing what is best for him. Give Wilson time to get his guys and his system and I think you’ll all agree it was a good hire for a historically terrible program.
-Contributing Writer at The Crimson Quarry.
I don’t think much of the exodus issue. Every coach who has left IU has left for an objectively better opportunity. Pease stayed at Boise to become OC and is now the OC at Florida. The other two guys, whose names escape me at the moment, went to Michigan and Nebraska. Smith went to Arizona to work for his old buddy Rich Rod. I don’t follow recruiting as closely as I should, but offhand I don’t remember any recruits taking a step down or even making a lateral move. I hated to lose Gunner, too, but I still think landing the verbal was more of an accomplishment than losing him was a black eye. And the thing that gets me about all this is that at the time Gunner committed, Dusty had already been through spring practice under KW and all that.
As for his off-the-field personality, of course I have concerns about some of the stuff I have heard, but the most important thing is how his team responds on the field. People would have tired of Hep’s nice guy routine if it didn’t work. In Dinardo’s last season, he beat Oregon and a ranked Minnesota team but let opportunities against MSU, Penn State, Northwestern, and Illinois slip away. If he had won those games, people would have been waxing poetic about his gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. There are good and bad coaches on all sides of the personality spectrum.
The Crimson Quarry, SB Nation's Indiana Hoosiers blog
by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Jan 16, 2012 9:22 AM EST up reply actions
oh I don’t deny that the assistants left for better jobs, but at the same time with all the talk about “changing the mentality” around IU, what does it do for the mentality of the program when the coaching staff uses it as little more than a stepping stone, some leaving before they even coached a game? And of course successful coaches run the spectrum of personalities. I mean look at the all time winningest coaches: Paterno, Bowden, and Bryant all had extremely different personalities and were all successful in their own right. My biggest worry is that Wilson, both with his record on the field and all his run ins off the field, is going to alienate enough people where the program will be even more irrelevant than it was before he came. Needless to say, his second year on the job will need to be a lot better than his first, in nearly every aspect.
All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia
by Veni Vidi Vici on Jan 16, 2012 11:20 AM EST up reply actions
As I said about the departures at the time, I think there are a couple of factors at work. First, unlike someone like Hep or another coach who moves from a head coaching position elsewhere, Wilson didn’t have a staff of “Wilson guys” to move over intact. So his staff as originally constituted didn’t have the sort of personal loyalty to Wilson or to each other that an intact staff would have had. more importantly, however, I really do think it speaks to the quality of staff that Wilson was able to assemble that schools such as Michigan and Nebraska wanted to poach our guys.
No disagreement on the broader point that things need to get better across the board.
The Crimson Quarry, SB Nation's Indiana Hoosiers blog
by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Jan 16, 2012 11:26 AM EST up reply actions
I think there's a telling intersection between basketball culture and football culture here.
Look at IU and Crean. It’s year four of a total rebuilding project and we’re finally back on track. It took Crean four years, and a total of less than 20 guys to turn the program around. Hell, the addition of just Cody has transformed this team.
Let’s survey the persistent wreckage of the football team: offensive and defensive lines that can’t block or stop anyone, and have never been able to do this. Slow, undersized secondary. Inexperienced and/or young QBs, two of whom no longer have a future here and are gone. A wide receiver corps that could be good, but is hurt by injuries, departures and the poor play of the quarterbacks.
Fixing all of that is going to take more than one year or even two. Five years is probably more likely before we see success (i.e. 7-5 and a bowl game). I think IU fans generally have unrealistic expectations about how quickly a football program can be built, especially at IU. If we go for our torches and pitchforks every time Year 3 rolls around and we’ve only won 4 or 5 games, we’re just dooming ourselves to repeat this idiotic cycle of hiring and firing.
Personally, I like the fact that Wilson has swung for the fences on big-time coaching hires and recruits, even if he misses. Also, I get the impression that the members of the team who have bought into Wilson’s philosophy really are trying to play and win all 60 minutes, even if they are physically outmatched by their opposition. I would rather see them try as hard as possible and get beat than punt from the opponent’s 40 with a lead and ultimately lose in the fourth quarter.
We’ll see what happens. Ultimately, that’s about all we can do as fans.
A sassy, brassy, classy lassy.
by LoneStarHoosier on Jan 16, 2012 11:32 AM EST up reply actions
Please yourself.
You don’t like the hire? Watch some other team. I believe you can find Florida on most network channels, even in Bloomington.
As I said, I’m reserving judgement until we have a team that Wilson actually put together and coached, and not the bleeding, headless remnants of Bill Lynch’s 3-9 and 4-8 teams. Yeah, the attrition is a concern, but I’m still not going to turn on the guy after one lousy season among many, many many lousy seasons.
A sassy, brassy, classy lassy.
by LoneStarHoosier on Jan 15, 2012 9:09 PM EST up reply actions
Hesitant to say good riddance
but I’m think something of the sort. The Gunner Kiel decommit stings even if it was an obvious choice. Still with Dusty gone we can at least mentally move on. Roberson is the QB of the future anyway.
-Contributing Writer at The Crimson Quarry.
until Wilson finds something newer and shinier and chases him off, too.
All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia
by Veni Vidi Vici on Jan 15, 2012 7:55 PM EST up reply actions
but Roberson wasn't Wilson's recruit?
Wilson is working with what he inherited. Roberson is obviously the better choice of what he had in the pipeline. Can’t fault Wilson for using the best available player. He didn’t find anyone new or shiny to run Kiel off. He gave Kiel and EWB all the opportunity in the world to prove themselves and they forced his hand to go with Roberson. Don’t blame Wilson for Kiel or EWB’s failures.
-Contributing Writer at The Crimson Quarry.
Okay. How would you have handled the quarterbacks differently this year? Do you think either Kiel or EWB has the ability to lead a mediocre Big Ten team? Do you think either has more long term potential than Tre Roberson?
The Crimson Quarry, SB Nation's Indiana Hoosiers blog
by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Jan 16, 2012 9:12 AM EST up reply actions
Meh
Good luck, Dusty, wherever you end up. Likewise to you, EWB. Neither of these losses is a program-changer. Neither was Gunner’s de-commitment, since he was not going to play defense.
As for the coach, I echo LSH’s comments above. Coach Wilson has a tall order in completely re-shaping the mentality around this program. That’s going to piss a lot of people off. He may be an asshole (and he may not be; I have no idea). But I have known assholes who can get things done. He should be given time to get the job done. If, in three more years, we are still talking about what an asshole he is and not about how he has changed the culture and started winning games, then we can look elsewhere and hopefully before he throws a potted plant at his secretary.
by hoosierdaddynow on Jan 16, 2012 3:43 PM EST reply actions
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