Indiana football is one of hardest place to win, historically. So what kind of job is it?

BLOOMINGTON – Scott Dolson began his search for Tom Allen’s replacement in earnest Monday, moving quickly with a timeframe that could number in days, not weeks, before Indiana’s next head coach is in place.

Dolson takes his job into a crowded marketplace this winter, the Hoosiers one of several mid- to high-profile positions open right now. Indiana is widely regarded as one of the more difficult jobs in what we should now probably refer to as the Power Four, but it isn’t without appeal.

What kind of package is Dolson selling? Some thoughts:

DOYEL: IU vacancy has never looked prettier, but Big Ten has never looked scarier

INSIDER: IU has poured resources into football. Search for new coach will require more.

THE GOOD

Competitive pay: Dolson probably answered the last remaining concerns about Indiana’s willingness to spend on football when he shelled out $15.5 million — plus assistants’ salaries — to remove Allen. The $5 million or so he saved on Allen’s buyout will help ease the burden of putting his replacement on competitive money as well. For the right candidate, it wouldn’t be surprising to see IU pay north of $5 million annually, maybe even pushing $6 million. The median pay rate right now in the Big Ten is somewhere between P.J. Fleck’s $6 million per year, and Bret Bielema’s $6.5 million. So that’s the pool IU will probably swim in for the right candidate.

Improving facilities: They’ll probably never stack up to the biggest hitters in the Big Ten, but Indiana has poured noticeable resources into facilities in recent years. The Hoosiers dramatically renovated their locker room, enclosed both ends of Memorial Stadium with state-of-the-art facilities and plan to build a football-only strength training space in the near future. There are still some clear needs here, renovations to Memorial Stadium’s east and west stands, and a Mellencamp Pavilion facelift, chiefly among them. But Dolson is committed to the former already, and the second is a sensible future effort as well. These have come a long way in the past decade.

Expectations vs. institutional commitment: The Big Ten money won’t stop flowing any time soon, and Indiana’s place in the conference buffers the program from the harshest winds of conference consolidation. Yet at the same time, IU will be thrilled if its next coach can just consistently fight for and land a spot in the bowl field. Dolson is even committed to smoothing the road in the nonconference, essentially doing his best to buy a 3-0 start every year while recognizing the difficulties of the growing Big Ten. Indiana isn’t the richest department in the league, but it stays out of debt, has increased football spending and won’t ask for the moon and stars. Dolson sounds ready to put his wallet where his hopes are, but he’s not going to ask for miracles. The bar will be clearable for his next head coach.

COACHING HOT BOARD 2.0: Possible IU candidates to replace Tom Allen

THE BAD

The Big Ten’s bad side: The benefits of Big Ten membership are obvious in the current college landscape. So are the costs. Next year alone, Indiana will face Ohio State, Michigan, UCLA and Washington. Even in a season with eight home games, that leaves Allen’s successor a steep hill to climb in Year 1, and the task isn’t going to get substantially easier. Allen’s greatest strength early in his tenure was his ability to turn enough coin-flip games into wins, and perhaps his greatest shortcoming late was how many he lost. The next coach must be best in the tight ones.

Recruiting efforts: More and more, college football recruiting is defined by the portal, which is defined by NIL dollars (more on that momentarily). But at the high school level, Indiana will always fight something of an uphill battle. The talent pool in state has improved noticeably in the past 15-20 years. But with Ohio State just to the east and both Notre Dame and Michigan to the north, locking down hotspots like Indianapolis isn’t practical. IU’s next coach will need both clear-eyed ideas about how to identify the skill sets he needs, and also the ability to open recruiting pipelines outside the state as effectively as he recruits his own backyard.

Perception: Indiana suffers more than just the basketball-school tag in football. It is the losingest program in Power Four history. It has never seen a 10-win season, and attended just one Rose Bowl. Fans are fickle, and at times difficult to engage. There have been bursts of optimism and competitiveness, but rarely sustained. Since World War II, no IU coach has left the program with a winning record across his time in Bloomington. Perception might not be the most quantifiable characteristic, but it is palpable, and it leans against the Hoosiers pretty much all the time. Indiana’s next coach needs to be comfortable with that.

TRANSFER TRACKER: Brendan Sorsby, Donaven McCulley among exodus to portal

INSIDER: IU fans, save your portal panic. For now, this is just the nature of college football.

WILDCARDS

NIL efforts: Indiana has redoubled them yet again around football. After a noticeable uptick in NIL engagement last offseason, expect the Hoosiers’ next head coach to have even greater resources this winter and spring. There will always be bigger fish. Ohio State and Michigan play at a level in this — like most everything else — IU can rarely match. But the goal should be providing as much as virtually anyone in the old Big Ten other than the Buckeyes, Wolverines or Penn State. Hard numbers are tricky, and every coach will always want more, but $3-4 million is probably a solid baseline for a competitive, bowl-worthy program. More money doesn’t equal more wins unless it’s spent correctly, but IU has seen the need for more focused efforts in football-specific NIL, and its next head coach should feel the impact of that.

Facilities up next: This can be a relative strength of the job, and also still a bit of a wildcard. Facilities needs will ever evolve. Dolson is committed to modernizing the fan-experience pieces of Memorial Stadium, renovations which at this point are long overdue. He should consider Mellencamp Pavilion a priority soon as well. Allen spoke before last season about his hopes for freshening up IU’s indoor practice facility, which is now roughly 20 years old and looks it. Indiana has done much here. It can — and should — do more.

Revenue sharing: NIL is today’s challenge/opportunity. But revenue sharing is coming, and soon, and it will be on this coach to figure out how to make it work for Indiana football. There are some potential benefits, like more equity and public clarity on both program spending on player compensation, and better establishment of players’ value in the wider marketplace. But just as NIL pretzeled the sport for a couple years, revenue sharing will come with its share of questions and hurdles, some of them unforeseen. And it will likely be on this coach’s shoulders it falls to figure out how IU succeeds in that vague new world.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU football is looking for new coach. Is it a good job? Big 10 helps.