Hoosier Happiness – Deflecting Way To Success; Football Honors

In case you haven’t noticed, Tom Crean is REALLY into defense. It is the cornerstone of his program, not only because it stops opponents, but if done well enough it generates offense.

And almost all players love to score.

Crean charts defense with something called deflections. He said the Hoosiers had 74 against Butler, which are the most of any team he’s ever been a part of as a coach.

That’s a big reason why the Hoosiers forced 21 turnovers and held the Bulldogs to 38.2 percent shooting.

The stat is not official and is not mentioned in box scores. So what is a deflection in Crean’s view?

First, it’s any ball that a Hoosier gets even a fingertip on, regardless of whether or not it leads to a turnover. That’s true even if the ball goes out of bounds without a change in possession.

“It’s not a rebound,” Crean said. “For us, it’s a charge. A shot-clock violation. It’s a tip. I tip it, you grab it, deflection for me, deflection for you. If it’s a blocked shot, if it’s a steal, if it’s a loose ball, but if it’s just not a rebound. If the ball’s loose off the board — now if it bounces off to midcourt, that’s another story — but if it’s loose off the board, that’s just a loose ball rebound, that’s a 50-50 ball.”

The bottom line is that deflections reflect how active the Hoosiers are on defense. In theory the more active they are, the better the defense, the fewer points opponents score, the more points the Hoosiers score, the more victories they get and the happier everybody in the Hoosier Nation becomes.

And after the past three years of basketball misery, happiness is a wonderful thing.



*****


IU might have gotten shut out in terms of Big Ten victories, but it did get enough solid performance to earn some all-conference recognition.

Senior linebacker Jeff Thomas and sophomore kicker Mitch Ewald got honorable mention honors, while junior defensive tackle Adam Replogle was IU Big Ten sportsmanship honoree.

Conference coaches and media recognized Ewald while just the coaches honored Thomas.

Despite playing with banged up shoulders, Thomas led the Hoosiers with 80 tackles and 10 tackles for loss. He also had one sack, one fumble recovery and three pass breakups despite missing one game because of injury. He ranked 12th in the Big Ten in tackles (7.3 a game) and 13th in tackles for loss.

Ewald has evolved into one of the Big Ten’s best kickers. He was 13-for-16 in field goals (9-for-10 in conference play) and made all 30 of his extra points. He is 63-for-63 in extra points for his college career. The 13 field goals ranked eighth in school history for a season.

For his career Ewald is 29-for-35 in field goals, which is 82.9 percent. He’s even better in big Ten action at 20-for-23 (86.9 percent).

Replogle is one of 10 finalists for the ARA Sportsmanship Award and is also a Capital One Academic All-District V selection. He led IU with four sacks. He finished with 49 tackles, seven tackles for loss, forced a fumble and broke up two passes.


*****

IU had its football team banquet where awards are given out. Interestingly enough, there were no MVP honors. Of course, you could argue, when your team goes 1-11, nobody earned it. You could also argue that record or not, some guys busted their behinds and did deserve the recognition, but that’s a debate for another day.

Anyway, here are the awards that were given:

Specials Ops Player of the Year: Greg Heban
Offensive Scout Team Player of the Year: Isaiah Roundtree
Defensive Scout Team Player of the Year: John Laihinen
Outstanding Walk-On Player of the Year: Collin Rahrig
Academic Excellence: Adam Replogle, Greg Heban & Teddy Schell
Teammate of the Year: Leon Beckum
Team Captains: Max Dedmond & Adam Replogle

IU Braces for Butler; What's Next for Football Hoosiers, Part I

Are you wondering why Indiana is doing this Hoosier Invitational basketball thing when it could have gone to some exempt tournament at some tropical paradise setting?

The No. 1 reason, it seems, is money. The Hoosiers, like a lot of athletic departments around the country, need more of it. That’s true even with the Big Ten Network pumping in millions to each conference school.

The Hoosier Invitational, which was spread out over two weeks, allowed IU to get four more home games. It also featured three, and we’re being nice here, not so strong opponents in Chattanooga, Savannah State and Gardner-Webb. The Hoosiers slaughtered them.

“We have to play so many home games every year because the department is dependent on the revenue,” coach Tom Crean said in a university release.

As far as scheduling, IU wants to keep a balance between home games and away, from really challenging games and those that are as close to guarantee wins as you can get in this parity driven era.

“We really look at scheduling on a year to year basis and we already have the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, the Kentucky series, and the Crossroads Classic for next year,” Crean said, “so we have to look for an exempt tournament and home games each year moving forward.”

Now comes Sunday night’s finale against Butler, the national runner-up the last two seasons doing some major rebuilding under coach Brad Stevens.

Stevens seems up to the task. He won 117 games in his first four seasons as a head coach, which are 10 more than any coach in history. The previous record holder, if you’re wondering, was North Carolina State’s Everette Case.

Anyway, Butler has struggled to a 3-2 record. It was lucky to escape Gardner-Webb after trailing by 17 in the second half.

No matter. Crean has plenty of reasons for concern.

“Their veteran guys have experience winning at the highest level, and have done a great job transferring their experience to their younger players,” Crean said. “They play very well together. They execute their offense and cut hard. Defensively they will get into you and make you work for everything you get.

These Hoosiers seem to enjoy such work. Figure they will handle the Bulldogs.


*****

Is Kevin Wilson the coach to lead the Indiana football program out of the wilderness of never-ending losing?

It’s way too early to tell.

Still, early signs aren’t good.

He directed one of the worst teams in program history, capped with a competitive 33-25 loss to rival Purdue in Saturday’s season-ending finale. The Boilers won back the Old Oaken Bucket and became bowl eligible. The Hoosiers won nothing but, perhaps, hope.

“(Indiana) has a lot coming back,” senior tight end Max Dedmond said. “They have great, quality guys coming back. I have confidence in them and that they’ll do fine.

“I feel like we did a great job since Coach Wilson got here to build our program up. I have confidence that they’ll do well.”

The Hoosiers played 32 freshmen. No other team in the country played as many. Sixteen of those were true freshmen.

It wasn’t necessarily by choice. Some of it was due to injury, some because veterans left (biggest reason -- they didn’t like Wilson) or were asked to leave. Some because the younger guys practiced harder and Wilson and his staff weren’t about to compromise their standards.

So IU got younger and got worse. It lost its last nine games to finish 1-11. It is the only team in a Bowl Championship Series automatic qualifying conference to not beat a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent.

What does that mean?

The Hoosiers stunk. The defense was miserable, which has become a Cream ‘n Crimson tradition. Still, this one might have been the worst in a generation, or a century.

All that youth doesn’t guarantee future success. Inconsistent younger players can become inconsistent older players if they don’t improve and grow. Wilson said as much.

“If they play the same, you’ll get the same results,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll be smart enough by playing to realize their deficiencies and what they need to work on.

“Do I lack strength and size? Do I have the knowledge to be a capable, quality player?

“You because you play as young guys doesn’t mean you’ll be better as you move forward unless you use that as motivation, as a learning tool.”

IU showed some learning against favored Purdue. Three times it built seven-point leads, gave itself a fourth-quarter chance with a 76-yard touchdown drive (capped by a 2-point conversion) just when the Boilers were poised to take control.

The Hoosiers still had a chance near the end of the fourth quarter until Tre Roberson’s deep pass to Nick Stoner was intercepted by cornerback Josh Johnson. Both players seemed to have possession as they hit the ground, with Johnson then ripping the ball away. Officials said it wasn’t a reviewable play.

Perhaps the bigger issue is that Stoner has to get strong enough so that nobody rips the ball away from him. Lack of strength was a MAJOR problem this season, perhaps because of the Hoosiers’ off-season emphasis on “leaning” the players up.

It sounded good in theory. Make guys fitter so they could handle Wilson’s full-throttle tempo. Wear down opponents. Win games.

In reality it was a disaster. The Hoosiers lacked the size and strength necessary to handle major college ball. Even Ball State, for goodness sake, an average Mid-American Conference team, manhandled IU up front on both sides of the ball.

Strength building will be a major off-season point of emphasis. It will start on Monday.

Yes, the Hoosiers can’t afford to take much of a break. When you’re this bad, you need all the work you can get.

Bucket Rivalry Matters; Groundhog Futility; Against the Odds

Purdue’s coming to IU on Saturday for the annual Oaken Bucket Battle and coach Kevin Wilson gets it. He understands the whole rivalry deal because he’s played in them and then coached in them.

Still, the battle for the Bucket is a new experience and Wilson said he’s ready for it even if the 1-10 record makes you wonder if his players are.

“The uniqueness is it’s a state rivalry,” Wilson said. “You’ve got the two institutions of the state, the state institutions. You grow up in the state. For the most part, I’m assuming the majority of the fans are pulling for whoever the family has or their grandfather has. For decades or 100 plus years it’s one school or the other.

“But again, to me what makes a rivalry great is there’s a natural love. There’s kind of a respect that you have for the school. The families know each other, the communities know each other. That being said, it’s family going against family. That makes for a little heated, bad blood rival. I’ve tried to tell our kids. I don’t think every school has that. I’d say that if you’d look at 120-some (major college) schools, there’s probably 70 to 75 that have some natural true rival. Some others are searching.”

The only thing the Hoosiers are searching for is a victory to wipe a really bad season. Saturday at Memorial Stadium, they’ll get a chance to find it.


*****


Wilson continues to push the play-as-you-practice concept. He wants player to go as hard in practice, that’s EVERY practice, as they do in games.

He also wants guys competing every day. If you get beat out, do something about it by practicing so hard and so well the coaches have to put you in. In the same way, if you win a job you have to keep winning it by your practice effort.

Wilson mentioned the quarterback situation. Freshman Tre Roberson has won the job, beating out veterans Ed Wright-Baker and Dusty Kiel. Both had injuries that gave Roberson a chance.

“My whole thing with Tre was, what are Dusty and Ed going to do?” Wilson said. “As a competitor, that’s what you want. You want to get back in the mix. You want to get your job back. You keep competing.”


*****


IU is a 7.5-point underdog against Purdue. It hasn’t won since September. It likely won’t win again until next September.

No matter. This is a rivalry game, and it distorts, if not shatters, the mantra you hear about treating every game the same. It sounds good in theory, but in reality it doesn’t work. There are some games you get more jacked about. This is one of them, and it alters the every day pattern coaches find so reassuring.

“I like groundhog day,” Wilson said. “I live everybody to be the same.

“But if I’m a senior, this needs to be a special (time). There’s the rivalry, the Bucket, Purdue. There are all kinds of uniqueness that should make this one of the best weeks of you life.”

Wilson has one last shot to get these Hoosiers to play their best. Can he do what he basically couldn’t do all season?

“We might have struggled,”said, “but our kids have worked hard. They’ve invested greatly. That’s why I keep getting frustrated with my inability to connect with them.”


*****

You might think Rod Smith, IU’s co-offensive coordinator and quarterback coach, might develop an interest in heading to Arizona now that Rich Rodriquez is the new coach.

Yeah, that’s the same Rodriguez who was fired at Michigan, and who has spent this season in coaching pergatory. Smith and Rodriquez have known each other for years, starting at Glenville State in West Virginia when Rodrigez was the coach and Smith was the quarterback. The men worked together at Clemson, West Virginia and Michigan.

Anyway, is Smith interested in going to Arizona?

Absolutely not, he said. He’s focused on Saturday’s Bucket game and beating the Boilers.”

After Saturday, things might change. For now, though, it’s all about beating Purdue.



*****

IU figures to sign 27 football players in February. The NCAA allows 25 a year, but because the Hoosiers signed only 23 last year, it can get a couple more.

Indiana has 21 commitments so far, with 14 listed on the defensive side. If you’ve seen the Hoosiers play defense this season, you know how badly they need defensive help.

Anyway, 13 of them have three stars out of five. Five are nationally ranked at their position and one –- offensive lineman Wes Rogers -– is No. 7.

Wilson Looks In IU Football Mirror, Sees Disconnect

Kevin Wilson is taking a good, long public look in the mirror. Coaching perhaps the worst team in IU football history was not part of the master plan when he was hired about a year ago. He wanted to be demanding. He wanted to change the mindset that kept the Hoosiers stuck in a whirlpool of losing that a revolving door series of coaches couldn’t stop.

John Pont stopped it briefly half a century ago. Bill Mallory did the same thing a generation in the past. Even Lee Corso had a few winning-season moments around the time the BeeGees ruled the airwaves.

Wilson arrived with his super-stud offensive credentials and tell-like-it-is approach, and as so often happens when a new coach arrives, all things seemed possible.

Then Cream ‘n Crimson reality hit, as it so often does. The Hoosiers lost at an unprecedented rate. They didn’t just lose, they got BURIED. They got physically roughed up by Ball State, for goodness sakes

Wilson demanded more, which is not a bad thing, which, in fact, makes him like every successful coach in America. But along the way, there came a disconnect.

Thirty players had enough and moved on, 19 of them on scholarship, some because of injury, some because, well, they didn’t like Wilson. One of them, perhaps the best of them, Damarlo Belcher, was kicked off the team after he and Wilson kept butting heads. His actual transgressions remain private.

It wasn’t the outcome Belcher or Wilson wanted, and both came off looking bad.

So now the Hoosiers get one last chance to win a game, this time Saturday against Purdue, their biggest rival. The Boilers have extra motivation because they need a win to become bowl eligible, but that motivation works both ways. Nothing would salvage a miserable season more than ruining Purdue plans.

Still, nobody figures IU to win. It can score some points against a sometimes vulnerable Boiler defense, but it has shown no sign of stopping anybody. It has played some of the worst defense known to man. Defensive backs get beat so badly at times, it’s like a bad comedy skit.

Except no one is laughing except, perhaps, opposing offensive coordinators who get their shots at making the Hoosiers look silly.

Again, this is not what Wilson and his staff wanted, not what athletic director Fred Glass wanted when he made them the highest-paid football coaches in school history and provided them with resources no previous staff had ever enjoyed.

So Wilson looked in the mirror and, in public, found fault. He mentioned it while talking to the media. He said it on his radio show.

“The real deal is our inability as coaches to connect and get more out of our kids more often,” Wilson said. “So we’ll keep moving with that.”

And then he said it again.

“We have not done a good job connecting. I have to do a better job of reaching our guys. We’re trying to reach our guys. We’re working at it, trying to work positively at it.”

On Saturday against Purdue, we’ll get one last chance to see if that work can produce results.

You don’t need a mirror to understand that.


*****


Remember Indiana’s 1987 national championship, when Keith Smart hit the shot the rocked the college basketball world and Steve Alford had a song about him that resonated with a 1960s’ classic.

We’d sing it, but you can’t sing on a blog.

Anyway, that team will have a reunion to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the program’s fifth, and last, national title. It’s set for Sunday, Dec. 4, when the Hoosiers play Stetson.

In that year IU stunned No. 1 UNLV 97-93 in the Final Four semifinals when coach Bob Knight scrapped the patient, motion offense approach because he didn’t think it would work the Runnin’ Rebels’ attacking defense.

Then the Hoosiers beat Syracuse 74-73 on Smart’s last-second shot.

Former players Steve Alford and Todd Meier organized the reunion along with deputy athletic director Scott Dolson, who was a team manager on that title team.

The first 7,500 fans in attendance of the IU-Stetson game will get a replica calendar poster from that 1987 championship season. There also will be an autograph session between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. (the game starts at 4:30).

More information is on its way.

Beating Up Cody; Corso Apologizes; Football Folly

The meek might inherit the earth, but they don’t hang out in the paint trying to stop Cody Zeller. Instead, Indiana’s heralded 6-11 freshman deals with a coarser group of guys who aren’t above smacking him in, well, a sensitive area.

“I know they’re going to try to beat me up a little bit,” Zeller says with a smile. “I just try to keep my head up and keep going at it.”

After four games Zeller has been roughed up in all sorts of ways, some that might get you arrested if done on a street corner.

The key is, this is just against mid-major players. What happens when the really big, really strong guys from power conference teams show Zeller what major college ball is really like?

Zeller, it seems, is ready for it just as he’s been ready for just about everything else this season. He’s lifted, run and played at a veteran level, and it shows in stats that include a team-leading 15.0 points, a team-leading 7.3 rebounds and an eye-popping 82.6 percent shooting from the field.

“One of the things I need to work on is getting stronger and getting lower on rebounds,” he says. “It’s a work in progress.”

Zeller is noticeably bigger and stronger than he was last year, the benefit of IU’s strength and conditioning program

“It was a lot of hard work in the summer,” he said. “It’s paying off.”

Coach Tom Crean knows teams are targeting Zeller, but he doesn’t want any retaliation other than by playing better and harder.

“I wouldn’t just single Cody out in that,” Crean said. “I think our guys are doing a very good job in handling that. They know the ramifications. Who knows what is going to happen down the road? I don’t think we have any wallflowers.

“Cody is a tough young man. Those guys have a determination about them. They understand what is at stake.

“I would have a bigger issue with some of that if the referees weren’t on top of that, but there’s no reason to believe that they’re not.

“We want all of our guys to play with a real intensity, a real determination, but to play with emotion, not emotional. For the most part, we’re getting that.

“Cody certainly epitomizes that. He plays with some emotion. He plays with a lot of intensity, but you never look at Cody and think he is getting emotional about anything, which is good.”

How good? We're about to find out.


*****

Are we getting so soft in America that a man can’t use the F-word on national television while putting on a mascot head without apologizing?

Apparently so.

ESPN, in its infinite wisdom, directed Lee Corso to apologize for blurting the Word That Shall Remain Unwritten during a College GameDay bit.

Lee, Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and former Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis were wrapping up a segment from Houston. The Cougars were about to play SMU and Corso was set to pick who he thought would win. He saw a megaphone that had SMU’s logo on it and shouted.

“How can you pick against SMU? Look at that one there –- red, white and blue!”

He picked up the megaphone and shouted “USA!”

Then he tossed the megaphone and picked up the Houston mascot head of Shasta the Cougar while saying, “Ah, (bleep) it!”

Fowler went face down onto his desk. Herbstreit pushed back from the desk as if concerned it would burst into flames. Lewis just laughed and applauded.

And then the whole thing went Internet viral. Corso later apologized on the air and said he would never use that word again.

But the video remains forever.


*****


Did you think Michigan State was rubbing it in when it let senior offensive lineman Joel Foreman run the ball against the Hooisers?

It happened in the third quarter with the Spartans ahead something like 200-3. Foreman is 6-4 and 315 pounds. He’d never carried the ball before, but coach Mark Dantonio wanted to give him a chance because, well, why not? It was Senior Day, which means it was Foreman’s last ever home game.

Why not have some fun?

Foreman rushed for three yards, and later got the game ball. It was a moment he’ll likely never forget.

In fact, it was not rubbing it in. The Hoosiers have become everybody favorite patsy. The only reason why they didn’t get slaughtered at Ohio State is because the Buckeyes, with all the issues they’ve faced, including losing their quarterback and head coach to a tattoo scandal, aren’t very good.

If you don’t want offensive linemen running on you, play tough enough so it doesn’t happen. But, as we have seen through the course of this long, long season, toughness is not yet a Hoosier strength.

Will that change? There’s no guarantee when it comes to Cream ‘n Crimson football. Just because IU plays a lot of young guys now doesn’t mean they’ll become good veterans down the road.

The Hoosiers have a chance to wipe out some of the sting of this painful season by beating Purdue. It would give the Boilers a losing record and ruin their bowl hopes. It would bring a measure of pride to an Indiana program that badly needs it.

The Hoosiers have one last chance to get it right. We’ll see what they can do with it.

Few IU Limits – Oladipo Stays Hot; Defend and Score Works

When it comes to defense, Victor Oladipo has his limits.

Bring on the point guards, the shooting guards, the small forwards, even the power forwards. But when it comes to centers …

“I don’t know about that,” he says. “Other than that, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Oladipo is the 6-5, 215-pound sophomore who has emerged as Indiana’s best early player. That can change in a season in which so many Hoosiers are poised for big-time play, but for now Oladipo is the leading scorer, top defender and best dunker.

The defense isn’t a surprise. He was known for his prowess in that area while thriving at DeMatha High School in Maryland. He dominated then because of his physical skills. Now it takes so much more.

“When you got to college everybody is going to be as strong as you,” he said. “I learned I can’t gamble as much as I used to. I learned I have to stay solid and keep my man in front of me.”

He learned it well enough to get opposing teams’ best scorers. And if during a game somebody else gets hot, he’ll switch to them.

“That’s my job,” he said. “I have to guard the best player from the other team and stop him from scoring.”

Oladipo is a catalyst in IU’s improved defense. The coaches stressed it last year, but the Hoosiers weren’t mature enough to handle it. Now, they are.

“It comes down to our mentality,” Oladipo said. “Every day our first thing is defense. Defense will create out offense. That’s what we’ve been working on in practice.

“Coaches have put great emphasis on that. Not that they hand’t before, but they’ve been putting even more on defense and defense creating offense. That’s what we’ve been trying to do.”

It’s worked. IU is shooting 57.1 percent from the field, which ranks second in the nation. The Hoosiers have four players averaging in double figures in scoring. Three more average at least seven points.

IU scored 94 points against Evansville even though nobody took more than eight shots. Of their 33 baskets, 24 came via assists.

That’s impressive.

“The balancing act of how it’s turning out is really not by design,” coach Tom Crean said. “It’s not where we look at it and say, Let’s hope this guy gets X amount of shots and that guy gets this group of shots. No, it’s, Let’s play. Let’s see what we get out of our defense. Let’s get the ball moving.”

Eventually it moves to forward Cody Zeller in the post and from there, well, it’s anybody’s guess. Which is what it leaves defenses doing because the Hoosiers are evolving into a team that has scoring threats at every position. You lay off someone at your own risk.

“We’re heading there, there’s no doubt,” Crean said.

Last year against Evansville the Aces could pack in their defense because IU didn’t have enough perimeter weapons to loosen them up.

Not anymore.

“We’ve got to continue to improve at that pace for that to happen,” Crean said.

As for that whole better-offense-through-better-defense approach, the players have bought into it.

“It’s becoming more natural in every game we play,” Oladipo said. “We need to keep doing it.”

IU Basketball – Time to Get Excited? What’s Up With Jones?

So what do we make of this Indiana team that has crushed the likes of Stony Brook, Chattanooga and Evansville?

Is this really a team capable of NCAA tourney relevance?

Perhaps.

The Hoosiers have shown consistency of effort. They defend well, push the pace and hit the open shot. They cut and pass with precision. They play with passion and purpose.

The fact they are burying teams they should bury is a good sign. Last year they struggled against mediocre teams, a sure indication of vulnerability.

Take, for instance, Purdue this season.

The Boilers are 3-0, but they barely beat High Point and Iona. A huge reason, besides both are solid teams, is that Purdue is struggling to make free throws. It is 17-for-39 in its last two games. If that doesn’t improve, it has no chance in the Big Ten.

The Hoosiers have shown no such vulnerability. They are not a powerhouse in the manner of, say, North Carolina, but the potential is obvious.

They do not play a brutal non-conference schedule like Michigan State. They face Butler, which is not the contender it was the last couple of years, and that game is at Assembly Hall. The real tests come back to back, with Notre Dame in Indianapolis as part of the Close the Gap Crossroads Classic and Kentucky in Assembly Hall.

Oh, yes, a Big Ten/ACC matchup at North Carolina State, a good but not great team.

This is, in almost every way, Tom Crean’s first real Indiana squad, a group that can play the game the way he wants it played.

If you’re an IU fan, it’s time to get excited.



*****


Are you like us? Do you see Verdell Jones go 4-for-4 from three-point range against Evansville and think that’s one of the signs of the Mayan End of Days?

Are you, also like us, convinced that the Green Bay Packers only beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl because of a conspiracy that reached to the highest levels of government?

We digress.

Jones, Indiana’s senior guard, is a career 29-percent three-point shooter. Yet suddenly he looked like Steve Alford at Evansville’s brand new Ford Center. Jones hadn’t made four three-pointers in a game since he was a freshman.

In his first three seasons Jones made 58 three-pointers. He was 0-for-2 from beyond the arc in his first two games this year. Then he couldn’t miss.

The obvious reason, Crean said, was defense.

What?

Crean pointed out that Jones had 10 pass deflections on defense, which reflected his aggressiveness in that area, which reflected that he was in tune to the flow of the game, which made everything better.

“His defensive intent from the beginning was outstanding and all of a sudden, he nails four 3s,” Crean said.

“When you've got guys really setting the tone for themselves and their teammates on the defensive end, it's amazing how many good things can happen on the offensive end."


*****

Kevin Wilson needs football help. Okay, that’s not rock the world news, but work with us here.

Wilson needs good players physical enough and tough enough to handle Big Ten battles.

Specifically, he needs good defensive players because if you’ve seen the Hoosiers play defense this season, you know how far they have to go. They are last in the Big Ten in scoring defense (36.0 points), total defense (452.6 yards) and mental breakdowns (250,000).

So Wilson has gotten three junior college commitments recently, all of whom are defensive players.

No, that is not an accident. Wilson will lose two starting linebackers and three safeties, and he’s got to recruit for that.

Defensive backs Tregg Waters out of Arizona and Shaine Boyle out of California, have joined Kansas middle linebacker David Cooper as oral commitments to IU. Wilson had earlier gotten junior college linebacker commitments from Darrius Stroud and Jaccari Alexander.

Boyle had 57 tackles and three interceptions last season. He has 37 tackles, including 4.5 for loss, this season.

Wilson prefers high school players because they have four or sometimes five years in the program. Junior college guys usually just have two, but they can bring a mental and physical maturity to produce early impact.

When you’re in the early rebuilding stage, you look for whatever edge you can find.