Initial Press Conference Reaction

The press conference introducing Kevin Wilson as the head coach just finished up. I will try and post up a video of it as soon as it is available online. Overall it looks like Fred Glass made a great hire. You do have some risk hiring a coordinator because they don’t have any head coaching experience but if I was going to put money on someone who could make that transition I would put it on Kevin Wilson.

He comes across as a very intense, no non-sense type of coach. I think this could be just what IU needs to help turn the corner in the football program. He stated many times that his teams are going to be physical and they are going to be smart. He does a great job adapting schemes to fit to the players that he has and discussed that his teams are going to play very smart. His teams don’t turn the ball over a whole lot and he always his teams have always been one of the least penalized teams in the league.

What makes him such a good pick up in my opinion is that he has been surrounded by success every where he has gone. He has coached in the Midwest for 9 years and has a lot of ties in the area. He has been apart of some of the most winning programs around and clearly knows what it takes to be successful at the highest level. He talks about how he has a plan in place that has been successful and that he doesn’t want to waste anytime turning this program around. Success needs to happen on a daily basis and he mentioned that it would be a very competitive off season.

In terms of recruiting he talked about how he thinks it is important to be able to recruit the state since we are the state school. That being said, we also need to be smart about it and make sure the kids we are bringing in are big ten ready and fit the program that we are looking to build. He has a lot of ties in the Cincinnati and Dayton area so there will be a good presencein Ohio. Working on Randy Walker’s staff at Northwestern gives him some good ties to Illinois as well. He will be recruiting mostly in the Midwest but did sayhe will look at some from the speed states such as Florida, Texas and Oklahoma because he has a lot of ties there as well. The make up of the recruiting will be focused on the Midwest but there will be some recruits from outside the Midwest that will be sprinkled in if they fit the mold of what he is looking for.

He seems very determined to get the ball rolling and turn this program around as fast as possible but doing it the right way. In terms of assistant coaches I am very confident that he will be surrounding himself with the right guys who will really help bring this program up. He talked about getting coordinators who are excited and energetic to be apart of the program as well. It sounded like he would most likely have all of the coordinators in place before the current players get back from Christmas Break.

My favorite quote from the press conference was when someone asked him about playing Nebraska again now that they are joining the Big Ten. He comes back and says that “we could play’em in the championship game if they are good enough to get there.” One of the other things that he said that took some people by surprised was when he said we were playing Ball St. in the dome to start the year next season. Could this mean Lucas Oil Stadium? Possibly.

On another note the 2011 football schedule just went across the bottom of the screen listing the following schedule for the Hoosiers.

2011-2012 SCHEDULE
Date Opponent / Event Location Time / Result
09/03/11 at Ball State Muncie, Ind. TBA
09/10/11 vs. Virginia Bloomington, Ind. TBA
09/17/11 vs. SC State Bloomington, Ind. TBA
09/24/11 at North Texas TBA
10/01/11 vs. Penn State Bloomington, Ind. TBA
10/08/11 vs. Illinois Bloomington, Ind. TBA
10/15/11 at Wisconsin Madison, Wis. TBA
10/22/11 at Iowa Iowa City, Iowa TBA
10/29/11 vs. Northwestern Bloomington, Ind. TBA
11/05/11 at Ohio State Columbus, Ohio TBA
11/19/11 at Michigan State East Lansing, Mich. TBA
11/26/11 vs. Purdue Bloomington, Ind.

Check back later for further analysis as well as a video of the press conference itself.