IU Football Coaching Search

[Hoosier Red]

It looks like IU is looking at three assistant coaches for its head coaching gig.

Read my write up of Coordinators to Head Coaches here; www.crimsoncast.com

Update: All sources are pointing towards Kevin Wilson, the Oklahoma Offensive Coordinator. There was a lot of chatter over the weekend, Fuzzy Zoeller's charter jet reportedly went to Norman OK and back today, and there's a team meeting tomorrow at 3 PM.

http://www.idsnews.com/blogs/hoosierhype/?p=14222

[Joseph]

How does that make you feel HR? I'm not an IU fan and I'm actually not much of a college football fan in general so I don't know the guy in question.

[Hoosier Red]

Well our last hire from Oklahoma worked out well.

I'm somewhat concerned hiring a coordinator rather than a head coach but to be honest from the head coach candidates, none really grabbed me.

Minnesota hired Jerry Kill who along with Kevin Sumlin is what I'd consider the top mid level college coach available.(I'm assuming Brady Hoke's now off the market.) And to be honest, if IU hired Jerry Kill or Kevin Sumlin, or Brady Hoke my reaction would be eh?

On the one hand, hiring a coordinator with no head coaching experience has worked out very well in the case of Bob Stoops or Mike Leach, but like a casino gambler when the move fails you don't really hear about it, they hire their next coach and mention 10000 times how experienced he is.

[Revering4Blue]

Kevin Wilson has ties to the Big Ten and to Terry Hoeppner. His resume is impressive.

http://blog.newsok.com/ou/2010/12/06...coach-tuesday/

http://www.soonersports.com/school-b...in_wilson.html

If he surrounds himself with the right defensive staff/players, this could turn out to be a terrific hire.

[Hoosier Red]

I agree, the connection to Hep is a nice extra piece. He'll have to make good hires on the defensive side, but combined with the new facilities, he should be able to recruit well. I'm really warming up to the hire.

[SunDeck]

Admittedly, I don't know word one about the college coaching scene, but it seems to me the biggest problem for Indiana is trying to compete in the Big Ten recruiting game, which I figure might require a coach of some notoriety. To which I say, Kevin who?

How many high school standouts know who he is? No matter how good a coach, that has to handicap him at least in his first few recruiting seasons. He would need to survive a few years, work a few minor miracles with the personnel on hand and compete in the Big Ten, with hopes that success would breed familiarity and desirability for the program, an uphill climb, to say the least. My prediction is this pick (if true) will be derided by the Hoosier faithful.

[SunDeck]

Herald Times reporting an announcement about Wilson to be made today at 4pm.

[WVRed]

Originally Posted by SunDeck

Admittedly, I don't know word one about the college coaching scene, but it seems to me the biggest problem for Indiana is trying to compete in the Big Ten recruiting game, which I figure might require a coach of some notoriety. To which I say, Kevin who?

How many high school standouts know who he is? No matter how good a coach, that has to handicap him at least in his first few recruiting seasons. He would need to survive a few years, work a few minor miracles with the personnel on hand and compete in the Big Ten, with hopes that success would breed familiarity and desirability for the program, an uphill climb, to say the least. My prediction is this pick (if true) will be derided by the Hoosier faithful.

As long as he can come in and implement something that players will want to play for, he will be somewhat successful. I'd rather go with an offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator than a recruiting coordinator. At least you have some niche that may work. If you are a recruiting specialist, your job has always been on selling kids on playing for somebody else.

The problem is trying to convince recruits to stay home and play for the Hoosiers when you have the following problems:

1. Basketball overshadows football. As a Kentucky fan I can tell you this one hurts.

2. Indiana isn't the most popular football school in the state right now. That title would belong to Notre Dame, but given the academics at ND, you might get some kids who couldn't make the grades there.

3. Other prestigious schools can usually scoop up the top talent. Whoever this coach is needs to find the best players available to fit the system.

Best of luck to IU and I hope this works out.

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by WVRed

The problem is trying to convince recruits to stay home and play for the Hoosiers when you have the following problems:

1. Basketball overshadows football. As a Kentucky fan I can tell you this one hurts.

2. Indiana isn't the most popular football school in the state right now. That title would belong to Notre Dame, but given the academics at ND, you might get some kids who couldn't make the grades there.

3. Other prestigious schools can usually scoop up the top talent. Whoever this coach is needs to find the best players available to fit the system.

Best of luck to IU and I hope this works out.

I always figured the problem was there weren't many decent football players in Indiana. Have they missed out on in state talent recently?

[Hoosier Red]

Originally Posted by SunDeck

Admittedly, I don't know word one about the college coaching scene, but it seems to me the biggest problem for Indiana is trying to compete in the Big Ten recruiting game, which I figure might require a coach of some notoriety. To which I say, Kevin who?

How many high school standouts know who he is? No matter how good a coach, that has to handicap him at least in his first few recruiting seasons. He would need to survive a few years, work a few minor miracles with the personnel on hand and compete in the Big Ten, with hopes that success would breed familiarity and desirability for the program, an uphill climb, to say the least. My prediction is this pick (if true) will be derided by the Hoosier faithful.

That would probably be true if they hired a MAC level coach too. He may know his way around the state a little bit better, but there's no kid who grows up dreaming of playing for Jerry Kill or for Mike Heywood.(Both fine coaches.)

One of the positives Bill Lynch brought was a good recruiter in state. He was well received and well respected by all the football coaches in the area, and he held up pretty well on the instate players. But that didn't get him very far.

Anyway, obviously he'll need to make some inroads in recruiting, but with the state of the art facilities, and a guy who has been offensive coordinator for two Heisman Trophy winning candidates, that will hopefully be easier.

One concern I've heard expressed was IU bringing in an offensive guy when the defense has been the anchor on the team for the past 10 years. I addressed that in my column here. DANGER CONTAINS SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION.

[Hoosier Red]

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

I always figured the problem was there weren't many decent football players in Indiana. Have they missed out on in state talent recently?

Actually the talent has grown pretty rapidly in recent years. Due to Pick any or all of the following; The Colts being good, The Pacers being criminals, the Pacers replacing criminals with bad basketball players, IU Basketball falling from it's previous lofty perch, the Colts being good, the end of One Class high school basketball tournament) Indiana is probably at least as much of a football state as a basketball state now.

The problem in previous years was that Purdue was the in-state school of choice and schools like Notre Dame, THE Ohio State University, Michigan, Michigan State, and Wisconsin all got whatever was left before IU.

Now however, Purdue only had three in-state players from its most recent two classes, and more and more people have been giving IU a chance in recruiting.
The absolute top guys still are unlikely to come to IU, but there's about 20 kids per class who can all play in the Big 10 who are looking at IU now that weren't before. If IU can get a majority of those, they'll have enough talent to compete in the Big 10+2.

[Hoosier Red]

Originally Posted by WVRed

As long as he can come in and implement something that players will want to play for, he will be somewhat successful. I'd rather go with an offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator than a recruiting coordinator. At least you have some niche that may work. If you are a recruiting specialist, your job has always been on selling kids on playing for somebody else.

The problem is trying to convince recruits to stay home and play for the Hoosiers when you have the following problems:

1. Basketball overshadows football. As a Kentucky fan I can tell you this one hurts.

2. Indiana isn't the most popular football school in the state right now. That title would belong to Notre Dame, but given the academics at ND, you might get some kids who couldn't make the grades there.

3. Other prestigious schools can usually scoop up the top talent. Whoever this coach is needs to find the best players available to fit the system.

Best of luck to IU and I hope this works out.

#1 I agree with all of these, but as Kentucky has shown, there are ways to make the basketball tradition a plus rather than a minus. If Kevin Wilson gets IU to 5 consecutive bowl games, they'll build a statue for him.

#2 Notre Dame has always recruited nationally, so it's not as big of a factor as you'd think. But until recently, Purdue was the #1 team in terms of instate talent. As I said in a previous post, that has started to change.

#3 This is a huge problem, whether it was Rex Grossman going from Bloomington to Florida, or Morgan Newton heading from Carmel IN to Kentucky, IU has to keep its top players in state and more importantly in Bloomington.

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by Hoosier Red

#1 I agree with all of these, but as Kentucky has shown, there are ways to make the basketball tradition a plus rather than a minus. If Kevin Wilson gets IU to 5 consecutive bowl games, they'll build a statue for him.

It's not really all that tough nowadays. In fact as bad as IU was this year they were only one win short. They can use the UK formula and that is to schedule 4 patsy non conference teams and then figure out a way to pick off two wins in conference

[Hoosier Red]

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

It's not really all that tough nowadays. In fact as bad as IU was this year they were only one win short. They can use the UK formula and that is to schedule 4 patsy non conference teams and then figure out a way to pick off two wins in conference

IU caught a lot of heat from its fanbase for its out of conference schedule this year. I don't think its as sure of a thing that IU could draw 50,000 no matter the opposition which has to factor into it as well. But I definitely see a lot of good things from the Bill Snyder/Glen Mason school of scheduling.

IU's pretty locked in to the schedule for the next few years of 1 1AA level team at home, 1 MAC or Sun Belt level team at home, 1 MAC or Sun Belt level team on the road, and 1 lower level BCS team or high quality non BCS team alternating home and road. I think the first two teams in this slot are Wake Forest and Navy. So in general, IU should be at least 3-1 coming out of non-conference every year.

[redhawkfish]

Stay out of Oxford please!