By Dustin Dopirak Tom Allen made his first trip to an American Football Coaches Association convention back in the mid-90s when he was still a defensive coordinator at Armwood High School just outside of Tampa, Fla. Head coach Sean Callahan brought the whole staff, and they got to sit in on schematic and leadership presentations and see the Coach of the Year award ceremonies. In the quarter century between then and Tuesday, when it was announced that Allen had been named the AFCA’s Coach of the Year for college football’s Bowl Subdivision, he had coached football at just about every…
Author: Dustin Dopirak
Tom Allen has been named the Werner Ladder American Football Coaches Association FBS National Coach of the Year, receiving the honor during the AFCA Convention awards on Tuesday. Allen joins Bo McMillin (1945) and John Pont (1967) as the only Indiana coaches to be named national coach of the year by the AFCA. “Tom is very deserving of this honor, which recognizes the remarkable job that he has done in propelling our football program to a level of success that we have not enjoyed in decades,” IU athletic director Scott Dolson said in a press release. “I’m particularly pleased that this…
The 2020 college football season has been over for less than 24 hours, but it already appears likely that Indiana will carry some hype into 2021. ESPN released its way-too-early Top 25 for 2021 on its Twitter account Monday and slotted the Hoosiers at No. 10. That put them second among Big Ten teams behind Ohio State at No. 5 after the Buckeyes’ loss to Alabama in the national championship game. The first official polls won’t come out until August, but even online rankings that come out in January give a decent sense of how programs are viewed heading into the…
By Dustin Dopirak Tom Allen sat down in front of a computer camera in the bowels of Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., on Jan. 2, his face wearing the sense that Indiana’s dream season shouldn’t have ended this way. This was a season in which the Hoosiers broke barriers, ended losing streaks and reached poll positions they hadn’t seen in decades. They had nearly come back to defeat a team that the night before had won the Sugar Bowl to put itself in the national championship game. They felt, and had plenty of reason to believe, that they deserved…
Indiana finished the season ranked No. 12 in the season-ending Associated Press poll, released shortly after Alabama defeated Ohio State Monday night in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. It’s their highest final AP poll ranking since 1967 when they finished the season ranked No. 4 after losing to USC in the Rose Bowl. The Hoosiers finished the season 6-2 with wins over Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State and Wisconsin, but lost to Ole Miss 26-20 in the Outback Bowl on Jan. 2. Indiana had been ranked No. 7 in the last AP poll before the bowl games, but…
By Dustin Dopirak Indiana coach Archie Miller was never asked directly about the state of sophomore guard and second-leading scorer Armaan Franklin’s ankle on his weekly radio show Monday night. However, he suggested vaguely that his status and perhaps those of other Indiana players for Thursday’s home game against Purdue remains in limbo. “We’ll see where we’re at in terms of full strength with all of our health and bodies by Thursday,” Miller said. “We’re limping around a little bit. I think that will be a big key is to make sure we have the best available guys available when…
Wayne Radford, a reserve wing on Indiana’s 1976 national championship team, has died at the age of 64 according to the IU basketball program. An Indianapolis native, Radford appeared in 30 games and averaged 4.7 points in 13 minutes per game as a sophomore for the last undefeated national champion in college basketball. He finally earned a starting position as a senior in the 1977-78 season and led the Hoosiers with 15.6 points per game. He finished his Indiana career with 922 points, an average of 8.2 per game, and shot 55.3 percent from the field. He earned Academic All-American…
By Dustin Dopirak The 23 minutes before Trayce Jackson-Davis’ first basket in Sunday night’s game at Nebraska included some of Indiana’s best offensive basketball of the season. By the time the Hoosiers’ preseason All-America center got a field goal on the board on a finish off a late clock baseline out of bounds lob, Indiana was already 20 of 41 from the field including 8 of 16 from the 3-point arc. Both of their starting guards were well into double figures, they had 3-pointers from five different sources, and they were at one point early in the second half averaging…
Washington Wizards center and former Indiana star Thomas Bryant has suffered a torn ACL in his left knee according to a report by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com. Bryant injured the knee in the first quarter of the Wizards’ 128-124 loss to the Miami Heat on Saturday. Multiple reports have described the injury as season-ending. Bryant is averaging a career-best 14.3 points to go with 6.1 rebounds per contest in 10 games this season. The 6-foot-10, fourth-year pro averaged double figure scoring each of the last two seasons after averaging 12.2 points and 6.2 rebounds in two seasons at Indiana in…
Indiana is keeping most of its offensive line for 2021, but the group is losing its most experienced member. Senior center Harry Crider announced on his Twitter account Sunday that he will forego the extra year of eligibility granted to all athletes due to COVID-19 and enter the NFL Draft in the spring. Crider has been the Hoosiers starting center for each of the last two seasons and appeared in multiple games in each of the past four. He had already earned his degree in criminal justice in Dec. 2019 and spent the past year working on a master’s degree.…