Antwaan Randle El college highlights

Yeah, Indiana went through, I believe, five ADs in six years or something ridiculous like that during the aughts. That didn't help football, that's for sure, and all the attention is paid to basketball anyway. The biggest problem for a school like Indiana in recruiting is that, as a football player, you'll never be bigger than even the 12th man on the men's basketball team, or bigger than the basketball manager. I suspect Kentucky has the same problem (along with trying to recruit alongside the rest of the SEC).

 

The other issue for Indiana is where do you go for players. The state of Indiana is producing more top-level DI talent than ever before but it's still only 25-35 players. Notre Dame takes one, Michigan grabs a few, Ohio State grabs a few, Purdue snags five or six, and even if IU gets five it then has to go into surrounding states to take leftovers.

The Big Ten is also much different than when Mallory was winning. Wisconsin was a non-factor. Penn State wasn't even in the league until later in his tenure. It was Michigan, Ohio State, and the rest of the league.

 

I know Cincinnati used to require people to purchase football season tickets to be able to buy them for hoops. Surprised IU didn't go that route.

 

They won't do it because there's no way in hell people who buy them. Or, what you'd get is an empty "sold-out" stadium. It's far more profitable for Indiana to sell the basketball season tickets, soak the buyers for more donations for better seats, and probably in the end get more money than if the school had required people to buy football tickets.

To sportsbook's point about talent, even during the best days of the Mallory era, he wasn't dominating in getting the best in-state talent. Illinois' very good defense of the time was built on Indianapolis players such as Mo Gardner and Darrick Brownlow, for example. What Mallory did to get the blue-chipper he could was promise them they could start on day one, or play the position they wanted to play. That's how he recruited Mike Dumas out of Grand Rapids, rather him going to Michigan or State.

It's telling that Indiana is often recruiting not against other Big Ten teams, but MAC teams. Players are deciding whether they want to get their asses kicked in the Big Ten, or having a fighting shot to win in the MAC.

 

The Mallory Era does look much, much better now that Indiana has not set the world on fire since 1996.

Randel-El's high point for me was when he helped hang 63 points at Wisconsin in 2001. That was a jolt. Yet Indiana would often answer those peaks with a stinker the following week.

Indiana simply stagnated in the Big Ten since 1992 or 1993. They were a decent "mid-level" program during the Mallory heyday. Yet the conference also changed. Purdue became consistently better by 1998. Illinois made a couple "mini-runs" in 2001 and 2006. Michigan State blew past Indiana the last ten years. Wisconsin went from a doormat to one of the top teams.

I think that Indiana's out-of-state recruiting base (from the Mallory days) has disappeared. In the late 80's/early 90's, they bagged a lot of decent players from the St. Louis area (Trent Green) when Missouri was dreadful and Illinois was not that strong.

If Purdue and Illinois are decent at the same time, that leaves very little for Indiana. I also think that, likewise, if Minnesota and Illinois become strong at the same time and protect Minneapolis/St. Paul and Chicago, then Wisconsin could be in trouble.

 

Luckily for IU fans, most of them don't care.

 

The fact that so many people can share intricate knowledge of Indiana football proves that anyone, anywhere can find anything at any time on the Internet.

 

There aren't many of us, but those of us who are around are pretty passionate.

 

It also helps, for the purposes of this board, there are a lot of IU journalism grads.

 

Very true.

 

I'm not an IU grad, but I need to be here to keep the IU grads in line.

 

The Randle El team his senior year was actually a lot of fun to cover. They were a good team by the end of the year and they had some great, smart kids. I remember an Ohio State writer wrote an article about how impressive the Indiana kids were during their interviews. I also remember Randle El getting a round of applause from the media (many of them) after the last game of his career against Kentucky. The kid was always available and a lot of fun to be around.