With no official word known on whether Indiana offensive coordinator Kalen DeBoer will be able to act as the Hoosiers' offensive coordinator at the Gator Bowl on Jan. 2, DeBoer said he wants to make 2019 "special" for Indiana and help his team end things "the right way."
With just 13 days left until the Gator Bowl, Indiana offensive coordinator Kalen DeBoer’s time at Indiana is ticking away following his introduction as Fresno State’s next head coach Tuesday.
He was back in Bloomington on Friday, helping the Hoosiers prepare for the program’s first Florida bowl against Tennessee on Jan. 2, and with no official word on whether he will be able to aid Indiana to its ninth win, he spoke to the media for what will likely be the final time.
It’s clear that DeBoer and the Indiana staff are preparing and speaking as if he will coach the bowl – business as usual – while they wait on official word regarding whether he will, in fact, be able to act as Indiana’s offensive coordinator in Jacksonville.
After practice, he was transparent in that he’d like to end 2019 “the right way.”
“That’s really what we’re trying to work out,” DeBoer said about making his bowl participation official. “I want to do it. I want to, this season, finish it off the right way – a special way. Obviously, there are a lot of things that are happening on both ends. This is all about these guys. I want them to have it. I want them to realize nine wins, and finish what we started.”
Defensive coordinator Kane Wommack said that he and DeBoer, two first-year Indiana coordinators, have recently joked about where they were just a year ago – DeBoer an offensive coordinator in the Mountain West, Wommack in his first year as the linebackers coach at Indiana after two years at South Alabama.
Now, they’re two key catalysts in what has amounted to one of the best seasons in Indiana football history.
Wommack still remembers his pitch to DeBoer, much like a recruiting pitch to prospects.
“The exposure that you get on a more national stage is going to attract more people to what you’re doing,” Wommack told DeBoer about working in the Big Ten. “Obviously, I would’ve liked that he would stay here a little bit longer, but at the same time, he maximized this opportunity here and certainly put himself in position to go back.”
Wommack wasn’t wrong. In two seasons at Fresno State as the Bulldogs’ offensive coordinator, DeBoer pushed the program’s offense from No. 120 in the nation to No. 47, as he, head coach Jeff Tedford and the staff guided their team to 12 wins – the most in program history. In one season at Indiana, DeBoer kept Indiana within the top-two Big Ten offenses all season and was named a semifinalist for the 2019 Broyles Award, which honors the nation’s best assistant.
But DeBoer had clearly developed a strong bond with the Fresno State community and program, as he said in his introductory press conference Tuesday that he had dreamed of being the head coach at Fresno State when he left. Once Tedford stepped aside because of heart-related health issues, DeBoer wanted the job, he said.
But he hadn’t planned on leaving Indiana as soon as he did.
“My philosophy has always been to work the job as hard as you can wherever you’re at,” DeBoer said. “I really did.”
It’s obvious that he worked his job hard, and it’s obvious that he cares about the future of the Indiana program. He called 2020 quarterback commit Dexter Williams before the news broke and helped assure him that he’d be okay at Indiana if he signed without DeBoer there. He set the template for how an Indiana offense will run, as Allen said Wednesday the system on offense will remain the same. When he gets a chance to speak to the offense, he said, he will let them know to believe in what they’re doing on the offensive side, because “the guys made the plays.”
“I know this staff will continue to keep it moving in the right direction,” he said Friday.
Between his announcement as head coach at Fresno State and the bowl game, DeBoer said he will work both positions – Indiana offensive coordinator during the day, Fresno State head coach in the evening – thanks to the three-hour time difference.
Most of his players are finishing finals and will be on break, since Fresno State did not qualify to play in a bowl game, and the staff is in some combination of a break and working to finish a small 2020 class during a dead period in the recruiting calendar. Most of his duties can be executed over the phone, he said.
With the recruiting dead period lasting until Jan. 16 and most of his staff already in place, DeBoer can focus a majority of his efforts on preparing for Tennessee, and without official word on whether he will be allowed to coach Indiana, he still plans to help the Hoosiers prepare.
“I’m so happy with how things have worked out in this program,” DeBoer said. “The staff has put a lot of time in, building this thing, and me coming in. The least I could do is help them get that ninth win and a Gator Bowl win.”
----
• Talk about it inside The Hoops Forum or The Football Forum
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Follow us on Twitter: @IndianaRivals
• Like us on Facebook.
