Phil Dickens got off to a promising start in 1958, but it all came crashing down in 1960 with recruiting violations that not only hurt football, but all of Indiana athletics.
The 1957 season was a disaster in every sense for Indiana football. New coach Phil Dickens was suspended before a game was played for violating the Big Ten’s new recruiting rules. “Coach-in-charge” Bob Hicks inherited an inexperienced roster with little depth and the Hoosiers were pummeled week-to-week in a 1-8 season. It was the Hoosiers’ 10th straight losing season.. If anything, support for the suspended boss was stronger than it would have been otherwise.
“We may be a trifle better than we were last year. Just a trifle,” Dickens told the Evansville Press in September 1958. “Our team speed isn’t there. We’re a long way from where we’d like to be.” Then Indiana turned things around. In a four-game stretch, the Hoosiers knocked off Miami of Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan State and Michigan … all of the games won by six points or less.
Indiana finished 5-3-1 and 3-2-1 in the Big Ten, good for fifth place. Dickens had never had a losing season in his career to that point. It found that Indiana was allegedly giving recruits bonuses of up to $800. The NCAA was particularly incensed given that five of the violations came in 1958, when the Hoosiers were on probation.
For a four-year period, no Indiana team could appear in NCAA postseason play – even though the recruiting violations were solely from the football program.This time the Big Ten – which conducted its own investigation and found no wrong-doing – appealed to the NCAA on Indiana’s behalf. Indiana lobbied for the league to pull out of the NCAA entirely.
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