Tom Allen fired; 5 Indiana football head coach candidates
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (BVM) – Following a 3-9 season in which they finished dead last in the Big Ten, the Indiana Hoosiers fired head coach Tom Allen on Sunday. Allen, who spent seven seasons as head coach in Bloomington, will receive a $15.5 million buyout.
Allen joined the Hoosiers as the team’s defensive coordinator on Kevin Wilson’s staff in 2016 and was named Indiana’s head coach after Wilson stepped down at the end of that season. Indiana would struggle in Allen’s first two years at the helm, but in 2019, the Hoosiers had a surprising 8-5 season led by one of the new head coach’s top recruits: four-star quarterback Michael Penix Jr.
The Hoosiers continued to get better the following year, going 6-1 in the Big Ten, making an appearance in the Outback Bowl and finishing No. 12 in the AP Top 25. In 2021, Indiana extended Allen’s contract through 2027, seeing him as the coach of the future for a program that appeared to be on the rise.
However, that never came to fruition as the Hoosiers went 9-27 overall in Allen’s final three years in Bloomington, and just 3-24 in Big Ten play.
Indiana has no shortage of options as it begins the search for its next head coach between some candidates with past ties to the university as well as a few up-and-coming coaches across college football. Here are five candidates to become the next head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers.
