Bloomington, Ind. — After a promising start, Bill Lynch’s tenure as Indiana coach ended with the Hoosiers in their familiar spot at the bottom of the Big Ten.

Lynch was fired Sunday with one year left on his contract, a day after Indiana reclaimed the Old Oaken Bucket from Purdue to earn their only conference victory in a third straight losing season.

“My view was that, given the circumstances of the last three seasons, that extending the contract was not a viable option,” athletic director Fred Glass said. “It would send the wrong signal of what merited an extension at Indiana University.”

Players insisted that Lynch wasn’t the problem.

After Saturday’s 34-31 overtime victory at Purdue, Indiana’s first win in West Lafayette since 1996, senior quarterback Ben Chappell acknowledged Lynch took most of the blame for the failures of the players. But that wasn’t what Glass had to consider.

He saw Lynch’s 19-30 record over the past four seasons, three conference wins in three years, the failure to reach another bowl game after his first season and the likelihood that other coaches would use Lynch’s uncertain future against him in recruiting over the next year. That gave Glass three options: Extend Lynch’s contract, let him fulfill the final year of the deal or start over.

Glass opted for Plan C despite being one of Lynch’s most public supporters.

Miami parts with Shannon

Coral Gables, Fla. — His voice nearly cracking, Miami athletic director Kirby Hocutt somberly laid out some of the many reasons why Randy Shannon was right for the Hurricanes.

The academic success. Improved recruiting classes. His decades as part of the Miami family.

Then there were 22 reasons that Hocutt couldn’t ignore — the games Miami lost under Shannon. In the end, those carried more weight than anything else.

A coach who left an indelible mark on Miami’s past will not be part of its future, and the Hurricanes started the process of moving on Sunday, with former offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland taking over on an interim basis, and players gathering for a tearful meeting.

“Change is difficult and change is hard,” Hocutt said Sunday. “But change, sometimes, it’s necessary. And this time, this change was necessary.”

Hocutt fired Shannon on Saturday night, hours after Miami lost to South Florida in its regular-season finale. The Hurricanes fell to 7-5, still have yet to play for an Atlantic Coast Conference title and lured only 26,369 fans — many of them rooting for the visitors — to Sun Life Stadium on Saturday, the smallest home crowd since Larry Coker’s last home game in 2006.

That crowd, or that loss, was not the final straw.

The sum of the parts — no ACC titles and no bowl wins — helped Hocutt decide.

Source: Bustle done at La. Lafayette

Lafayette, La. — Louisiana-Lafayette fired football coach Rickey Bustle, a person familiar with the decision told the Associated Press on Sunday.

The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the university has not announced the move, says athletic director David Walker plans to discuss Bustle’s firing at a regularly scheduled basketball media luncheon today.

Bustle declined talk about his future at ULL after the Ragin’ Cajuns defeated Louisiana-Monroe, 23-22, in their season finale on Saturday.

Bustle has coached the Cajuns since 2002, posting a 41-65 record. Louisiana-Lafayette, which plays in the Sun Belt Conference, went 3-9 this season. Bustle had four six-win seasons, but never coached ULL to a bowl game.