The July college basketball recruiting period opened last Tuesday, as coaches begin their month-long journey to gyms across the nation scouring for the nation’s best talent. It’s the best time of year for coaches to evaluate young talent, keep an eye on current recruits, and make sure they’re not missing the boat on any players. It’s a hectic 8am-11pm schedule, day after day, often times in a different city every couple of days (or in the same day). July tends to be the time of year when the common college basketball fan takes notice of recruiting. New names pop up on radars and young talent emerges. Locally, Indiana basketball fans are looking for any signs of positive stories they can find.
Basketball is king, but that isn’t the story that IU fans should be keeping their eyes on. Quietly, Bill Lynch is doing major recruiting work with the IU football program. As the IU faithful are following where Coach Crean is scouting or what outfit Bennie Seltzer is wearing, Bill Lynch landed a commitment from Bloomington North stud running back D’Angelo Roberts.
For those who don’t know, Roberts isn’t the Hoosiers first commit for 2011: He’s their 20th, and that’s on July 13th. It definitely helps that Roberts plays right in the Hoosiers backyard, but this is a bigtime recruit. I don’t care how many stars are listed next to his name (okay, it’s 3 if you really want to know) DeAngelo Roberts is the real deal. He rushed for 2600 yards last year for North in a pretty solid football conference (Conference Indiana). I’ve had the luxury of watching him in person twice, and he’s made the “wow” type of players that you don’t typically utter for high school running backs.
Roberts is the motivation for this blog entry, but Coach Lynch and staff have been doing work all winter and spring. Of Rivals top 15 players in the state of Indiana, Lynch has secured (use that word loosely) commits from 6 of them (Okay, so it’s players ranked 9-14 but still). With Purdue fleeing to Florida to recruit, Indiana has a real opportunity to stake its flag in the state. The top-tier players in this state are still heading elsewhere ( North Carolina, Stanford, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Cincinnati, Notre Dame this year) but IU has made huge in-roads over the past four seasons. For those that scoff at recruiting the state of Indiana for football, the depth of talent has increased at a high rate over the past 10 years or so. It will only continue to get better, and the IU staff is positioning themselves nicely across the state.
Lynch and staff really seem to know who they are, as only one 2011 commit comes from outside the following states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio. For a program that never seems to have a plan, IU seems to have figured it out; their plan that is. Go after the best players in the Midwest, offer scholarships early, fight the right battles, and go after character. With the early offers, IU has a shot to land great talent before the Ohio State’s and Michigan’s even get involved (If they commit, IU must hang on for dear life, however). For the first time since I can remember, the Hoosiers have two national top 250 players in their 2011 recruiting class. No matter how much stock you put into rankings, it’s hard to ignore the fact that IU’s season finish in Big 10 play routinely correlates with their recruiting rankings; typically in the bottom 3.
The two 4-star commits, Zach Shaw (Coshocton, OH) and Raymon Taylor (Detroit) will have a lot of peer pressure to de-commit from the Hoosiers. As soon as a powerhouse sees a need at one of their positions, they will be making the phone call looking to scoop them up. In the past, (all the way to last year) you could be assured that the top verbal commits to IU would never sign their letter of intent.
It’s a different Indiana now. Their weight room rivals any in the nation, the stadium renovations make it Big 10 quality, and the other amenities make it fit for a program that isn’t content being a basketball school in the bottom 3 in football. There is a real dedication to the football program, and you can see the dividends with the past couple of recruiting classes.
This still has to translate to Saturday’s in fall, but the foundation seems to be in place to contend for a bowl game every season. There is a whole lot of work left to do, but momentum is on the program’s side. You don’t have to look much further than Tracey Porter’s interception in the Super Bowl or last year’s NFL Draft to see some of the selling points Coach Lynch and staff have in their arsenal.
In a basketball state and in a basketball recruiting period, it’s the football version of the Hoosiers that are having a big Summer.
While Summer is great, it's still the Fall that I'm worried about.
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