How Kevin Wilson changed recruiting culture at Indiana

Recruiting at Indiana under Kevin Wilson saw dramatic improvement during the recently dismissed head coach’s six-year tenure with the program. With his era in Bloomington now over, we look back at some of the ways he changed the recruiting culture for the Hoosiers.

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Wilson was hired by Indiana shortly after the conclusion of the 2010 season. In six of the previous seven recruiting classes prior to his arrival, Indiana finished dead last in the Big Ten team recruiting rankings. While he was never able to vault the Hoosiers into the top tier of Big Ten recruiting, he certainly moved them out of the basement. No Indiana recruiting class has finished in last place on Wilson’s watch, and his 2014 and 2015 classes finished seventh out of 14 teams – the highest ranking in school history during the Rivals.com era.

One of the more profound statistics in Indiana recruiting history is that prior to the 2011 recruiting class – the first signed by Wilson – Indiana had never signed a four-star prospect. But Wilson was able to sign seven four-star prospects over the six recruiting classes he brought to Bloomington. The biggest haul of four-star talent came in the 2013 class, when four four-stars – defensive linemen Darius Latham and David Kenney, athlete Rashard Fant and safety Antonio Allen – signed with the Hoosiers.

The state of Indiana is a solid, though not particularly deep, talent pool of Division I prospects. It has produced five five-star prospects and 45 four-star prospects over the last 15 classes, but the Indianapolis area has been improving as a talent-producing region in recent years. With fellow Power Five programs Purdue and Notre Dame in state, convincing the state’s best to play in crimson and cream had proved difficult historically for Indiana. While the Hoosiers never became the dominant team for in-state talent, their success in the state certainly increased under Wilson's watch. The city of Indianapolis was made a recruiting priority, and five of the seven four-star prospects they signed in Wilson's tenure were from Indianapolis.

Successfully recruiting players that many other schools wanted was one element of Wilson’s success at Indiana. The other was identifying prospects his contemporaries missed. In his very first class Wilson brought in a 5-foot-6, 147-pound all-purpose back/slot receiver in Shane Wynn who would go on to be the Big Ten’s most electric return man in his time. The following year – Wilson’s first full recruiting class - running back Tevin Coleman and offensive linemen Jason Spriggs and Dan Feeney came aboard. Coleman and Spriggs are in the NFL and Feeney will soon join them, yet they had nine Power Five offers between them coming out of high school.

When talking with recruits about Indiana over the last five to six years, the one theme that came up more than others was how attractive the offense was and that skill players wanted to be in that system. Not only were the Hoosiers improving their statistics and scoring totals, but Wilson’s high-octane offense had become an attraction unto its own. And once the offense started to establish itself and showed it could score points against the top teams in the Big Ten, defensive players were attracted to the program as well because they felt they may be the missing piece that put Indiana over the hump. Now the question becomes, can the Hoosiers build upon that success in the post-Wilson era?