Tom Allen moved fast in firing Nick Sheridan. His next move could make or break his IU tenure.
Zach Osterman
Indianapolis Star
BLOOMINGTON – Tom Allen’s postseason evaluation process reached its most substantial conclusion in less than 24 hours.
On Sunday morning, IU announced the dismissal of offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan, who had been in the position for two years. After an abysmal season in which Indiana’s offense sank to the bottom of the Football Bowl Subdivision by any number of measures, Allen was left with no choice. The timing of his announcement — coupled to his visible frustration in recent weeks at the impotence of his offense — suggests he did not begin contemplating Sunday’s move on Saturday night.
“I want to thank Nick for his work and commitment to our football program,” Allen said in a release. “He is a good football coach and a man of tremendous character, but we are in the need of a reset on the offensive side of the ball. We will begin our search for Nick’s replacement immediately.
“We did not meet the standard that I expect from our football program, and that starts with me. This season was not acceptable and we will work to address it.”
Insider:After coming up so short of expectations, IU is in need of a significant overhaul
Doyel:Those Purdue students with that kickoff chant were merely rude. But not wrong.
There are a few things here.
One is Allen being decisive. Despite groupthink to the contrary, the easy course of action is nearly always to retain, not to fire. It costs less money. It doesn’t require change. It’s comfortable.
Whatever his performance this season — and again, by any conventional or advanced metric, IU’s offense was little short of terrible in 2021 — Sheridan is respected not just within Indiana’s program but by virtually anyone who works or has worked with him.
Within weeks of arriving in Bloomington, Sheridan’s predecessor, Kalen DeBoer, was already telling people within the program that Sheridan had the chops to run his own offense. Allen elevated the former Michigan quarterback at the recommendation of people like DeBoer and Willie Taggart, whom Allen respects and trusts. And quarterbacks from Josh Dobbs to Peyton Ramsey to Michael Penix have expressed marrow-deep faith in Sheridan.
By all accounts, he’s a good coach whose players respect him. His elevation was not favoritism. He earned his shot. Sometimes hires just fail.
This one did, and Allen moved swiftly to address that.
Two is Allen taking responsibility on himself.
One of the common criticisms of moves like these is that they are designed to scapegoat an assistant for a head coach’s performance. That ignores the reality of the job of an assistant coach. They will always be more expendable than head coaches, and they’re well compensated for their relative lack of job security.
Sheridan made $500,000 per year on a two-plus-year deal signed in March that Allen willingly took an $800,000 pay cut across the next four years to help insure. That’s an unorthodox move from IU’s head coach, and one that owns (at least to some extent) the degree to which IU’s offense bottomed out this season.
No one will have wanted this to be the ultimate outcome. But it’s also part of the job when the job doesn’t go according to plan.
Three is Allen giving himself a big job now.
Again, contrary to popular opinion, firing is rarely the easy choice in cases like this. It requires difficult conversations. It shakes up previously settled staff dynamics. It creates the pressure of having to find someone new, hire them into an inevitable spotlight, install a new scheme and deal with all the attendant growing pains.
Easy would have been retaining Sheridan and promising an offseason offensive rethink. Instead, Allen and Athletic Director Scott Dolson worked out a path forward that allowed IU to honor Sheridan’s contract (subject to mitigation) and move the program on without him. Now, Allen must get this hire right.
He’s seen both potential outcomes.
Allen’s first offensive coordinator, Mike DeBord, was never quite able to make the Hoosiers efficient or explosive enough to capitalize on Allen’s first good defense in Bloomington. When DeBord stepped aside, Allen’s chosen replacement, DeBoer, quickly built an offense that helped the Hoosiers to their first eight-win season in 26 years. That success carried over enough in Sheridan’s first season for Indiana to surge to a 6-1 record in the truncated regular season, the Hoosiers’ only loss a 42-35 shootout defeat in Columbus.
Across three different coordinators, many of the structural principles of IU’s offense — spread formations, 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end), regular use of tempo and a timing-based screen game — have remained constant. The suggestion: This is what Allen wants his offense to look like, and his coordinator hires have been based on his faith in those coaches to deliver on his vision.
Across the course of Allen’s search for a new OC, it might be valuable for him to reconsider his own idea of what his offense should be. Not radical change, but rather a reexamination of some of the fundamental questions he wants answered on that side of the ball, game after game. That self-evaluation could be as beneficial as his eventual hire.
There’s one last thing: the symbolism attached to Allen’s pay cut.
The decision itself was mutually agreed upon between Allen and Dolson. And Allen will still be owed well over $4 million annually per the terms of his revised contract, so this isn’t a man bravely falling onto a financial grenade.
But in a time when coaches elsewhere in the Big Ten annually use the carousel to hold their departments to ransom for more money or more years (or both), the idea of a well-paid football coach handing his own money back to the department to cover the cost of a staff change he deems necessary says something.
Again, it won’t force Allen to mortgage his house or change his vacation plans. But it is an investment in where he is and what he’s trying to do there, and an assumption of responsibility for just how badly the bottom fell out of IU’s offense this season far more substantial than any pre-fabricated statement in a news release.
Allen has made some high-profile coordinator hires in the past, and handed out the richest contracts to those coordinators in program history. Especially given his willingness to help cover the cost of Sheridan’s dismissal, he should have substantial resources available to him as he searches for his new OC.
No move of his tenure has been watched as closely as this one will be. It will likely prove the difference between setting Indiana back on track, or things spiraling beyond Allen’s control. He’s backing himself to make the right call. That’s the most you can ask of any head coach.
Zach Osterman
Indianapolis Star
BLOOMINGTON – Tom Allen’s postseason evaluation process reached its most substantial conclusion in less than 24 hours.
On Sunday morning, IU announced the dismissal of offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan, who had been in the position for two years. After an abysmal season in which Indiana’s offense sank to the bottom of the Football Bowl Subdivision by any number of measures, Allen was left with no choice. The timing of his announcement — coupled to his visible frustration in recent weeks at the impotence of his offense — suggests he did not begin contemplating Sunday’s move on Saturday night.
“I want to thank Nick for his work and commitment to our football program,” Allen said in a release. “He is a good football coach and a man of tremendous character, but we are in the need of a reset on the offensive side of the ball. We will begin our search for Nick’s replacement immediately.
“We did not meet the standard that I expect from our football program, and that starts with me. This season was not acceptable and we will work to address it.”
Insider:After coming up so short of expectations, IU is in need of a significant overhaul
Doyel:Those Purdue students with that kickoff chant were merely rude. But not wrong.
There are a few things here.
One is Allen being decisive. Despite groupthink to the contrary, the easy course of action is nearly always to retain, not to fire. It costs less money. It doesn’t require change. It’s comfortable.
Whatever his performance this season — and again, by any conventional or advanced metric, IU’s offense was little short of terrible in 2021 — Sheridan is respected not just within Indiana’s program but by virtually anyone who works or has worked with him.
Within weeks of arriving in Bloomington, Sheridan’s predecessor, Kalen DeBoer, was already telling people within the program that Sheridan had the chops to run his own offense. Allen elevated the former Michigan quarterback at the recommendation of people like DeBoer and Willie Taggart, whom Allen respects and trusts. And quarterbacks from Josh Dobbs to Peyton Ramsey to Michael Penix have expressed marrow-deep faith in Sheridan.
By all accounts, he’s a good coach whose players respect him. His elevation was not favoritism. He earned his shot. Sometimes hires just fail.
This one did, and Allen moved swiftly to address that.
Two is Allen taking responsibility on himself.
One of the common criticisms of moves like these is that they are designed to scapegoat an assistant for a head coach’s performance. That ignores the reality of the job of an assistant coach. They will always be more expendable than head coaches, and they’re well compensated for their relative lack of job security.
Sheridan made $500,000 per year on a two-plus-year deal signed in March that Allen willingly took an $800,000 pay cut across the next four years to help insure. That’s an unorthodox move from IU’s head coach, and one that owns (at least to some extent) the degree to which IU’s offense bottomed out this season.
No one will have wanted this to be the ultimate outcome. But it’s also part of the job when the job doesn’t go according to plan.
Three is Allen giving himself a big job now.
Again, contrary to popular opinion, firing is rarely the easy choice in cases like this. It requires difficult conversations. It shakes up previously settled staff dynamics. It creates the pressure of having to find someone new, hire them into an inevitable spotlight, install a new scheme and deal with all the attendant growing pains.
Easy would have been retaining Sheridan and promising an offseason offensive rethink. Instead, Allen and Athletic Director Scott Dolson worked out a path forward that allowed IU to honor Sheridan’s contract (subject to mitigation) and move the program on without him. Now, Allen must get this hire right.
He’s seen both potential outcomes.
Allen’s first offensive coordinator, Mike DeBord, was never quite able to make the Hoosiers efficient or explosive enough to capitalize on Allen’s first good defense in Bloomington. When DeBord stepped aside, Allen’s chosen replacement, DeBoer, quickly built an offense that helped the Hoosiers to their first eight-win season in 26 years. That success carried over enough in Sheridan’s first season for Indiana to surge to a 6-1 record in the truncated regular season, the Hoosiers’ only loss a 42-35 shootout defeat in Columbus.
Across three different coordinators, many of the structural principles of IU’s offense — spread formations, 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end), regular use of tempo and a timing-based screen game — have remained constant. The suggestion: This is what Allen wants his offense to look like, and his coordinator hires have been based on his faith in those coaches to deliver on his vision.
Across the course of Allen’s search for a new OC, it might be valuable for him to reconsider his own idea of what his offense should be. Not radical change, but rather a reexamination of some of the fundamental questions he wants answered on that side of the ball, game after game. That self-evaluation could be as beneficial as his eventual hire.
There’s one last thing: the symbolism attached to Allen’s pay cut.
The decision itself was mutually agreed upon between Allen and Dolson. And Allen will still be owed well over $4 million annually per the terms of his revised contract, so this isn’t a man bravely falling onto a financial grenade.
But in a time when coaches elsewhere in the Big Ten annually use the carousel to hold their departments to ransom for more money or more years (or both), the idea of a well-paid football coach handing his own money back to the department to cover the cost of a staff change he deems necessary says something.
Again, it won’t force Allen to mortgage his house or change his vacation plans. But it is an investment in where he is and what he’s trying to do there, and an assumption of responsibility for just how badly the bottom fell out of IU’s offense this season far more substantial than any pre-fabricated statement in a news release.
Allen has made some high-profile coordinator hires in the past, and handed out the richest contracts to those coordinators in program history. Especially given his willingness to help cover the cost of Sheridan’s dismissal, he should have substantial resources available to him as he searches for his new OC.
No move of his tenure has been watched as closely as this one will be. It will likely prove the difference between setting Indiana back on track, or things spiraling beyond Allen’s control. He’s backing himself to make the right call. That’s the most you can ask of any head coach.
