BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – When push came to shove with Indiana football's struggling offense, an evaluation period and the timing of the Hoosiers' bye week meant that offensive coordinator Walt Bell's eventual firing felt inevitable.
In turn, Tom Allen promoted quality control coach Rod Carey to the role, citing continuity and familiarity on the headsets and Indiana's personnel as the reasons behind the choice. He's a former head coach himself, with pedigree at places such as Northern Illinois and Temple as both an offensive coordinators. Allen says Carey provides the most flexibility for Indiana's offense, has the needed trust banked with the staff and communicates well.
"I just feel like we're aligned in the things we want to align in," Allen told reporters on Monday.
It's Carey's second mop-up role in as many years on the Hoosiers' staff – last season, he oversaw the offensive line after Darren Hiller was fired. This year, his plug-and-play propensity finds him in charge of Indiana's offense and quarterbacks.
Yet, the position isn't Carey's on an interim basis. Instead, Indiana has given Carey the role permanently. There's an entrenchment of trust in him to turn things around, too – the IndyStar reported that Carey is now the program's highest-paid offensive coordinator ever.
Saturday, Carey will become Indiana's third different offensive coordinator in 38 games. He's the fifth different coach to hold the role under the seven years of Allen's tenure in Bloomington, and he'll take over an offense that is 8-21 in it's last 29 outings.
The idea of familiarity was also the reasoning behind Nick Sheridan's promotion to the position at the onset of the 2020 season. Hoping to build off the foundation of 2019's Kalen Deboer-led offense that helped Indiana break through to eight wins for the first time in a quarter century, Allen called upon Sheridan – who at the time was Indiana's tight ends coach and had worked with the Hoosier quarterbacks in previous years – one of the "bright young offensive minds" in the game of college football.
"I have the absolute confidence that he is prepared to keep the continuity in our offensive system and allow us to build off of the success we had in 2019," Allen said in January of 2020 in the official release announcing the move.
Sheridan's offense, however, didn't find the same success that Deboer's did. Deboer had moved on to Fresno State, where he excelled in his two years and earned himself the Washington head coaching position. His Huskies now have a top-10 ranking, a former Hoosier as a Heisman-contending quarterback and a 16-2 record under his watch.
As for Sheridan, he was relieved of his duties as Indiana's offensive coordinator at the conclusion of the 2021 season. His stint in the role lasted 20 games, and he's since latched back on with Deboer in the pacific northwest.
Indiana then went outward for their next offensive coordinator, landing on former UMass head coach and Maryland and Florida State offensive coordinator, Walt Bell. Bell "checked all the boxes" for Allen, saying that Indiana had found the right man to lead their offense beginning in the 2022 season.
17 games later, he's no longer Indiana's man either.
Which led Indiana back inward and back to Carey, aiming to keep some sort of comfort and cohesion about itself.
Carey says Indiana will simplify the approach they take, preaching a philosophy of doing more of what works and less of what doesn't. But for a unit that's been amongst the worst in the previous seasons since Deboer's departure, there isn't much that jumps off the page. The jury is out on whether there's enough to value "continuity" of, too.
(If you're interested, Taylor Lehman's Bite Sized Bison on Carey did a fantastic deep dive on what Indiana's offensive attack could look like, but beware: the numbers are gaudy.)
The continuity that has existed in Indiana's offense hasn't come from the staff or the personnel, but rather the poor performance the unit has had as a whole under just about any offensive coordinator since Allen took the head coaching job.
Logistically, the move isn't completely out of line sense-wise – Carey's elevation to a full-time role can allow prospective recruits to have an idea for who they could be playing for should they come to Indiana. He's been serviceable in a number of roles for Indiana already in his short time on staff, and he's led offenses of his own as well.
However, where the deviation from the norm comes in the absence of an interim tag. The increased job security in such immediate notice is rarely seen in the middle of a season, and is certainly uncommon in the Power Five ranks. Instead of conducting a search that would've allowed the Hoosiers to assess the landscape of potential candidates and go through a thorough vetting process, Indiana opted for securing their future from within right now.
Whether it works remains yet to be seen, and perhaps a matchup against a defense of Michigan's caliber isn't the best, fairest barometer of where they will be better or worse than things have been.
But despite the continuity that Allen is relying on in appointing Carey as his full-time offensive coordinator, it's in Indiana's best interest that Carey bucks a seasons-long trend of faulty hires and ineffective play. The sense of urgency to be improved and competitive in football, combined with the incentive for athletic departments to be solid for 12 Saturday's a year, has never been higher.
In maybe the most important move of Allen's tenure, he's trusted Carey with the keys to his offense in the midst of a spiraling season.
We'll find out rather quickly where the road leads for everyone involved.
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