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IU signs Hoeppner to 2-year extension
By Steve Warden
The Journal Gazette
Hoeppner
In leading Indiana University?s football program to more wins in two years than it had accumulated in the previous three, coach Terry Hoeppner will receive a two-year extension to his contract, an announcement that will be made official later this week.
The extension will take Hoeppner, the Woodburn native who has led IU to a 5-7 record this past season and 4-7 in his first year in 2005, through the 2011 season. Terms were not disclosed.
Hoeppner let the news slip when he told the IU Radio Network about his extension during a halftime interview during the Indiana-Charlotte basketball game Saturday.
Indiana observers believe that the Hoosiers are on the edge of turning around their football misfortunes. Under Hoeppner?s predecessor Gerry DiNardo, Indiana won only eight games in three seasons.
Starting several freshmen this past season, including redshirt freshman Kellen Lewis who was named the team?s most valuable player at its end-of-season banquet, and playing several more freshmen and sophomores, Indiana came within one victory from claiming its first bowl berth since 1993.
After starting the season with victories over Western Michigan and Ball State, IU was thrown for a setback when Hoeppner announced that he was to go in for his second brain surgery within a nine-month period.
Hoeppner missed two games, both of which Indiana lost. They would turn out to be costly losses to Division I-AA Southern Illinois and Connecticut.
While Hoeppner recovered, so did IU, winning three of its next four. With a 5-4 record, Indiana needed one win from its last three games to become bowl eligible, but the Hoosiers lost their last three to Minnesota, Michigan and Purdue.
?Did we accomplish everything that we could have? No,? Hoeppner said at his season-ending press conference. ?But we?ve affected a lot of people. We?ve laid a foundation, and the spirit is great, not only with the team, but within the Hoosier Nation. I will return next year, and for as long as they?ll keep me around here.?
Indiana?s schedule will be helped considerably for the next two seasons because the Hoosiers will not play either Ohio State or Michigan until 2009.