Tom Allen had Indiana rolling for a few years, and for one two-year stretch the Hoosiers were 11-5 in Big Ten play — even as they were playing in the much tougher side of the conference. They finished No. 12 in the nation in 2020, but when NIL came into play, sources told The Athletic, IU was caught without a plan and so never got into that game. On Sunday, Indiana fired Allen after eight seasons and will pay him a big-time football buyout of around $20 million.
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Make no mistake, this is a tough job: you’re at a basketball school in a football conference. But with the Big Ten money rolling in, resources are still plentiful by Power 5 standards. What efforts will IU put in to become a player in the NIL game will be a question for many of the candidates. There are several top Power 5 assistants we think that will be in the mix for this job, all of them offensive guys, and that’s why this could be one of the more interesting searches of this year’s carousel.
Michigan OC Sherrone Moore has capably stepped in during Jim Harbaugh’s three-game Big Ten suspension and led the Wolverines through the toughest part of their schedule, posting two Top 10 wins including a huge win over Ohio State. Players and fellow UM staffers rave about the 37-year-old Moore. He’s been shown to be an emotional, passionate, solid leader and a vital cog in the Wolverines’ rise the past three seasons, as his O-line has won back-to-back Joe Moore Awards as the nation’s top line unit. The Kansas native — who played at OU and then Louisville — has proven he’s ready to run his own program, but we think he’s also proven to some key UM folks that he should be the guy should Jim Harbaugh move on to the NFL after this season. That fact could keep him from being the guy here.
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Washington offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb — who we think also could be in play for San Diego State — is a hot name right now. A protégé of former IU OC Kalen DeBoer, Grubb spent five seasons in the Mountain West at Fresno State before following DeBoer to Washington, where he’s sparked one of the most explosive offenses in college football with the Huskies ranking No. 3 in the country in yards per play. Last winter, he turned down Nick Saban, who wanted Grubb to be Alabama’s OC.
Ohio State offensive line coach/associate head coach Justin Frye will get some consideration for this job, we’re told. He’s got strong ties to this school and to some key people there. The 40-year-old Indiana native played at IU and holds the school record for most consecutive starts for an O-lineman with 45. He began his coaching career at IU in 2007 before leaving to work for Urban Meyer at Florida where his coaching career began to ascend. Before coming to OSU, he was Chip Kelly’s offensive coordinator at UCLA. Frye is very well-regarded in coaching circles, and he has the commanding presence and polish to be a head coach. This might end up a good fit for the Hoosiers.
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Alabama OC Tommy Rees is only 31, but he has spent a lot of time in the state and is wise beyond his years. The former Notre Dame quarterback has had a good debut season in Tuscaloosa working with a very green O-line, and has done very impressive work developing Jalen Milroe into a budding star. This group has made big strides since early in the season, and Rees deserves a lot of credit for that. They are No. 7 in the country in third-down offense and No. 5 in Red Zone offense. We suspect he’ll become a head coach before he’s 35, but would this be an opportunity he’d want to jump for?
Notre Dame running backs coach/run game coordinator Deland McCullough also has some strong ties to IU. The former NFL running back spent two stints in Bloomington. He’s done an outstanding job wherever he’s coached and has been regarded as a top assistant coach, regardless of position, for a long time. He’s helped ND to a top 10 offense this season in yards per play, thanks to a much improved running backs room. The 50-year-old is a strong personality and has been in the mix for some MAC head coaching jobs previously.
As for the sitting head coaches who could be in play here, Toledo’s Jason Candle, who also is getting consideration for the Syracuse vacancy, might make a lot of sense for the Hoosiers. His team is 11-1 and set to play Miami of Ohio in the MAC title game. A former MAC Coach of the Year, Candle has won at least nine games three times in his seven seasons with the Rockets. The 44-year-old Mount Union product has won two MAC titles and is preparing to make it three.
Troy’s Jon Sumrall was primed to jump into an SEC head coaching job if Texas A&M had hired Mark Stoops and left Kentucky open. The former UK assistant has crushed it at Troy. The 41-year-old is 22-4, including last year’s 12-2 debut and top-20 finish, at a place that had been spinning its wheels prior to his arrival. He’s a terrific recruiter and has a really impressive ability to connect with people. However, Sumrall knows his stock is soaring and is likely better off continuing to build up Troy while waiting on a bigger Power 5 job.
Former IU DC Kane Wommack has been a good hire for South Alabama. The 36-year-old is 21-16 in three seasons there (including this year’s 33-7 drubbing of Oklahoma State in Stillwater), and he’s doing it at a place that never had a winning season before he led them to 10 wins last year. We’d be surprised if he doesn’t at least get a close look from IU.
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Marshall’s Charles Huff has coached in the Big Ten at Penn State and is a charismatic leader. The 40-year-old also spent time learning under Nick Saban at Alabama before getting the Marshall job. He led the Herd to a win over Notre Dame last year in a nine-win season. This year has been more challenging, with Marshall 6-6, but we do expect him to be on IU’s radar.
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Eastern Michigan’s Chris Creighton, a mentor to DeBoer, has been really good at a tough place to win in the MAC for a decade now. EMU is 15-10 the past two seasons. The 54-year-old is a solid culture builder, but not a splashy name. He is very well respected by his peers though.
Washington State’s Jake Dickert has been terrific for Wazzu despite any number of unique challenges that have faced the program. From the chaotic time he took over for Nick Rolovich to the drama of the school being left out after the rest of the PAC-12 broke apart, Dickert has been a strong leader. The Cougars went 5-7 this year (notably, Dickert has beaten Wisconsin in each of the last two seasons) despite a bumpy path that we’re told was impacted by chaos from the Pac-12 fallout. The team was 4-0 with a big win over a good Oregon State team, but then the reality of what was going on around them sunk in for a lot of the players after a bye week, and they subsequently dropped six in a row. The 40-year-old Wisconsin native received some consideration for the Michigan State search, and we suspect he will listen if IU comes calling.
One major wild card candidate that could get involved in the search is former NFL coach Jon Gruden. Gruden, who won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 39, won 117 total games as an NFL head coach, but resigned as the Las Vegas Raiders coach in 2021 after an NFL investigation uncovered emails Gruden sent from 2011 to 2018 that used racist, misogynistic and homophobic language.
The 60-year old Gruden does have some support with a few key people high up at the school, I’ve been told. Gruden has connections to the school, too; he visits Bloomington fairly often. His father, Jim, was a coach at Indiana on Lee Corso’s staff in the 1970s. Word is that Gruden does have some interest in the job. Whether the Indiana administration would have the appetite for a move like this, though, remains to be seen.
(Top photo of Tommy Rees: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
