Why exactly is Indiana a “good job” and “easy to win big”? We’ve seen nobody consistently win there for 25 years at this point. I’d argue that it’s akin to Nebraska football.
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If he takes a job, I think it has to be with a plan for length of tenure as part of the conversation. In the case of IU it might be, “Hey, I will stand this program back on its feet, plan to give you five years. . .”
I could see him starting to get into the fine print with some of these programs and in the end not biting. After listening to those IU fans boo Archie yesterday. . .
The thing with Nebraska football is that the things they did to dominate are no longer even vaguely possible (massive steroid advantage, abuse of roster limits, and regional recruiting disappearing). Indiana is still a pretty fertile recruiting ground and there’s plenty of talent in the midwest to go around, and they have the money/resources to back that up. Bloomington is supposedly a high-level college town (never been), and they still have prestige.
I do think it’s not necessarily as good of a job as it was 25 years ago, but it definitely still has advantages… And like… have other options like Minnesota, Marquette or Notre Dame really been consistently better over the past 25 years? The answer is obviously no.
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Most of what you’re talking about is recruiting related. Even if Indiana has some amount of recruiting clout (debatable IMO) that’s probably the thing Beilein cares least about. The point Matt made above about Beilein being a five year guy is spot on. He needs to install his culture and build it over her time, he’s not going to land a bunch of impact freshmen and transfers and turn it around quickly. That’s a bad fit for Indiana.
I also think Beilein is going to avoid the Big Ten. Why in the world would you willingly join a conference that’s set up to be extremely tough for the next decade when you can join an ACC where the big programs are clearly in decline? Maybe ND isn’t open but I don’t think the opportunity at IU is a good fit for him at all.
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But you could also imagine him evaluating the next job based in part on what happened in the last job – no idea if he would because I don’t know him personally, but it’s possible. He’s a competitive guy to be sure, but a lot of coaches measure that in ways other than rings and banners.
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Beilein took the Michigan job because he viewed it as a place where he could get the talent to compete for national championships. The Michigan program was in far worse shape at the time than Indiana is now. There is no way that Beilein would look at Indiana and not think that he could do the same thing there.
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Another thing about Nebraska is the offense they relied is no long viable and that offense created a huge recruiting advantage for them. Every high school program in the state was running the triple option so they didn’t even need to recruit Olineman, they could just offer a bunch of local players walk on spots.
Not to mention football and basketball just aren’t comparable. Look at Gonzaga or Memphis under Calipari, you can build top tier programs at damn near any school in forge basketball with an elite coach. That simply isn’t the case in college football, there is no program like Gonzaga, Boise State at their peak or UCF a few years ago were never legitimate national title contenders.
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But his criteria changed for the next job. Then it became geography and curiousity about the NBA. If he wanted to be a champion in any league he would not have gone to Cleveland.
I highly doubt beilein would turn iu down as stated above he loves challenges, took a terrible wvu job that Dakich quit after a week because it was such a mess and left a wvu program he had rolling for a struggling um program. Then there’s the Cavs. If I had to guess he’d choose the nd job over iu job if he had a choice though.
You guys are also forgetting he is closing in on 70 years old. I am sure he knows that and will sway him if he is going to take a coaching job. He most likely knows he cannot come in and compete for a championship right away, but how many years will that take vs. how many years does he have left in the tank?
When you are in your 50s, a rebuild like at UM/WVU makes sense. When you want and have the chance to jump to the NBA based on your criteria (geography, etc) that also makes sense. Taking a team like IU at this stage doesnt really.
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Beilein is a process guy. If he takes a job, he’s going to want to build the program his way. It is literally what he does. I don’t see how age impacts that.
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Belief is that as people get older, retirement and not working as hard as you did decades earlier plays a role. As you said he is a process guy, if he knows his process might take him 4-5 years to get where it needs to be and he is in his 70s at that point, is that what he really wants to be doing?
I think he is smart enough to take that into account when looking at a potential job.
I’d be surprised if there’s anything he’s wanted to do more during his year off.
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Yeah, I would like to retire ASAP. Beilein seems to be different.
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Yeah, definitely wouldnt surprise me at all. Obviously hes not hiding from the game and I think that shows he wants to be back on the sideline. Will be really interesting to see where.
You don’t think he’s enjoying making live bets?
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Ok, survived today. Moving on to tomorrow, emotions aside, are we rooting for Purdue or OSU?
Purdue scares me less, but OSU will be more tired after 3 games in 3 days
Give me Purdue. They’re a team exclusively built around an inefficient paint bound big. That’s a good matchup even for Davis
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I’m beginning to think those under 1 ppp games had more to do with bad teams playing and not because of the dome effects
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B1G is apparently fulling of players begging to be benched