Coach Lynch Press Conference Transcript

I’m not going to post the whole thing but here is the link. Here are some of the statements he made which come from iuhoosiers.com

“It is obviously a big day for us as a football program, and it is a culmination of a lot of work. Those of you who cover it so closely understand that so much of the work is done a year ago. My wife came home last night and said, `What are you doing?’ I was writing recruiting notes for the 2011 class, so you are always working a year ahead. This class was one without any surprises, which is good. We really like the group. It is a bigger group than we’ve had with 25 new guys, and we signed 21 today because four of them are already here.
On how well needs were addressed:
“I think pretty well in the sense that we got six DBs, and we lost five defensive backs, so we are good at DB. We felt like we needed two guys that were a little bit older so we got the two junior-college corners. We felt fortunate there and the same thing at linebacker losing a lot of linebackers and we have several of them coming in. I thought that was important.
“We had taken four offensive linemen the year before so we weren’t as concerned with that, plus Marlandez Harris and Pete Bachman both played offensive line so if it didn’t work out at defensive line, they could come over and play offensive line.
“I get myself concerned with making sure we have enough bigs. A big guy is a tackle-to-tackle on offense or a defensive tackle on defense. A defensive end can be a guy that fits a linebacker or tight end, that kind of thing. It’s important to me to make sure we have the right kind of guys in the program and then we’ll find the right spots.
“We lost a couple of running backs and so we needed some there. We took two quarterbacks a year ago, so Kofi Hughes was perfect for what we were looking for, a guy that can play quarterback but is also an athletic guy that can do some other things. We’ve got some good young wideouts but we wanted to replenish it so [Logan] Young and [Tim] O’Conner fit that. We lost two tight ends in [Troy] Wagner and [Brian] Zematis who were bigger kids so [Paul] Phillips certainly helps there and [LeNeil] Himes can be a big tight end or a receiving tight end. From that standpoint, I think we did very well.”

On position changes:
“We have talked to some of them. Mitchell Evans is going to go over to defense. He won’t practice in the spring because he had some surgery, but he started for us as a freshman. We’re going to try Matt Ernest at corner. He’s a really good athlete, a physical guy, a quick guy who really played good on special teams late in the year. Now, that’s the beauty of the spring because if it doesn’t work, he’ll just go back and play receiver. Plus, he is going to pitch [for the baseball team] in the spring so he’s going to have a busy spring. But that’s the beauty of a guy who’s in his third year in school, he can handle all of that. It would be overwhelming to these young guys but for Matt its just like, `Let’s go.’ And he played it in high school. Those are probably the two main guys from a defensive standpoint that would jump out at you. There may be a few other things that we are still debating as a staff.”

On emphasizing recruiting in the state of Ohio:
“Ohio is a good football state and it is a big state. If we have 300 high schools playing football in the state of Indiana, they probably have 800. So, it is just a numbers game. Ohio has been good for us because our three lead recruiters over there, Bobby Johnson, Brian George and Mike Yeager, all played high school football in Ohio, all played college football in Ohio and all coached college football in Ohio, so we’ve got a pretty good go there.
“We’ve got guys in the right geographical areas. We’ve got those three guys that all have done that and they are all in the areas where they grew up. Bobby grew up in Akron, he is in northeast Ohio. Brian grew up in central Ohio, he is in central Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Yeager grew up in Cincinnati, he is in Cincinnati. It is like here in the state, Billy Lynch and Kyle Conner played high school football, college football and have coached in the state, so they have Indiana. George Ricumstric is from Michigan and played high school football and college football. He has done a great job in Michigan over the last several years. Matt Canada recruited Wisconsin for years while he was at Northern Illinois, so we try to put guys in the areas where they know high school coaches and have connections.
“But, I don’t think it is coincidence, because we’re going to recruit Ohio hard, but we don’t have a quota that this is how many we’re going to take out of each state. We didn’t take as many out of Indiana as we normally do or would like to. Every year it is a little bit different.”