Pathetic.

Is defensive football really that difficult? If you're a Colts or Hoosiers fan, it must seem impossible. How much would you pay to see your team get a stop when it needed it? When it mattered most? The scenarios of both teams are eerily similar from a coaching standpoint.

Indiana hired Terry Hoeppner and I truly think he was the right guy for that job. Passionate, hard driving, and wouldn't accept anything but positive results. His untimely death forced a difficult choice on Indiana. IU's administration decided to hire Bill Lynch, in no small part because Hoeppner's widow Jane said he was the right guy. Looking at Lynch's resume, I have no idea how any reasonable human being could come to that conclusion. Here's a coach who took a decent Ball State team straight into the toilet, eventualy piling up an 0-11 season in the MAC. That's hard to do. He did eventually get them "back" to just under .500; but nothing on his resume suggested he'd have even warranted an interview if he hadn't been on Hoeppner's staff to begin with. The year following Hoeppner's death, Indiana - using emotion, Hoeppner's system and Hoeppner's players - went to a bowl game and finished the regular season 7-5. Since? Two straight last place finishes in the Big 10, lost lead and missed opportunity after lost lead and missed opportunity. Poor fundamentals and poor execution. And incredibly bad defense.

The Colts? They hand the job to Jim Caldwell who looks to me like Homer Simpson on the sideline. He looks lost and he looks nothing like a man in control. But his being handed the job when Tony Dungy left is eerily similar to Indiana University. Caldwell's history as a head man is less than stellar, as he had a losing recrd at Wake Forest. In his first season? His team went to the Super Bowl, but the argument can easily be made for "Dungy hangover." Now? In year 2, the defense looks undisciplined and it can't make a play when it needs to. Kelvin Hayden won't sleep tonight if he has a conscience after dropping what may be the easiest interception of his career. And the defense as a whole over-pursues more than teen-aged boys on spring break. The coverage is soft, and I'll never understand how you can call a blitz and at the same time play soft coverage on the outside. Jacksonville took advantage of that at least three times, and as bad as David Garrard has been, the Colts made him look like a good NFL quarterback. That loss was inexcusable and simply sad. Dungy's teams struggled defensively at times too; but always seemed to figure out how to win important games. Caldwell's Colts are 0-2 in the AFC South for the first time in history and have looked awful for 3 of the 4 games they've played.

As a fan of both Indiana and the Colts, I must admit to being a little disappointed in the lack of pursuing the right coach for each job. Indiana Basketball lost a decade by making the easy choice when it hired Mike Davis and I'll submit they still haven't recovered from that terrible decision. Lynch is clearly in way over his head against decent and good football teams, and I don't like the pattern under Caldwell. Maybe I'm over-reading it; but maybe I'm not. I use my eyes to make decisions, and I don't like what I see.

RT Brightman