As Indiana languished through a second straight miserable season in 2022, the change everyone knew was needed finally happened.
On Oct. 9, 2022, then IU head coach Tom Allen made a somewhat unconventional move and fired offensive line coach Darren Hiller midway through the season.
Allen closed out the season with former IU center Rod Carey coaching the offensive line on an interim basis, and then made a hire that December that continues to play a pivotal role in the program turnaround.
“Bottom line is we found, I feel like, the very, very best person for the job,” Allen said in December of 2022 after the program announced former Wisconsin and NFL offensive line coach Bob Bostad was hired.
Curt Cignetti agreed Bostad was the best option a year later when he was the only member of Allen’s staff he retained.
There are many ways to measure an offensive line’s effectiveness. But the number of sacks allowed stands out as much as anything. During that fateful 2022 season that led to Hiller’s dismissal, IU allowed 38 sacks, the 107th worst total in the country. That figure dropped to 25 (No. 59) in Bostad’s first season in 2023, and 21 (No. 45) a year ago despite Kurtis Rourke almost never leaving the pocket at least in part due to a knee injury.
Indiana’s rushing offense didn’t improve dramatically from 2022 to 2023. For the seasons those teams averaged 3.36 and 3.33 yards per carry respectively. IU still had some larger bugs to fix. There was another midseason firing in 2023, this time offensive coordinator Walt Bell. But coupled with an improved scheme and a second year for Bostad to work with the line, that figure ballooned to 4.37 in 2024.
So what has changed since Bostad took over the offensive line? There is no one better to answer that question than Mike Katic, who played for Indiana from 2019 to 2024.
“The standard (under Bostad) was a shock to everyone,” Katic said on a recent podcast. “He’d walk into a meeting and everyone would shut up, notepads out, watching film. He wanted no jokes, no nothing, and it translated. We would do thousands and thousands of reps.
“With our old coach, I love Coach Hiller, he was more of a personable guy. He would come in, we’d joke around. We’d go out on the field and do reps, and we’d work hard, but nothing (like under Bostad).
“Coach Bostad would walk in and was like ‘This is what we’re doing today,’ and if you didn’t do it he would destroy you. But we needed that. We needed a kick in the ass. We needed a guy to come in and motherf*** us.
“And we go out, and we had one of the worst o-lines in 2022, and one of the better o-lines in 2023.”
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