IU Football’s Crazy June

To the casual Indiana football fan the only relevant months of the year are September and October…I say this because those are the only months that have great tailgating weather (and even October is a stretch sometimes). To anybody like me, who is an actual fan of the team, college football is a year round sport. One of the most exciting times for football fans (even for IU), is tracking the progress of each year’s recruiting class – though it isn’t always good for the Hoosiers.

In a typical year, the recruiting class starts taking shape in the early summer months, but the bulk of visits and commitments take place during the football season. Of course there are teams like Texas and OSU who can hand pick their recruits and are basically wrapped up by the time football season starts…but for most teams this isn’t the case.

That is…Until now!!

The month of June has seen “Wild” Bill Lynch securing football commitments at about the same pace The Jersey Shore’s “The Situation” shacks up with an unattractive, obese, female (also known as a Purdue co-ed…ouch).

Through today – June 24th – IU’s commitment list stands at 18 players. As a point of reference: This is the most in the Big Ten…OSU has 15 commits followed by a slew of schools that are sitting at 5. Some will point to Indiana and say “quantity, not quality” – I disagree. The coaches have done a great job of pinpointing players that they have a shot with but won’t have to compete with the likes of OSU, PSU, etc. To further my point, the last two recruits that Indiana received commitments from had offers from Wisconsin – not exactly one of those MAC schools that we have competed with in the past.

Here’s a quick rundown of IU’s current class – keep in mind that these are verbal commitments and a lot of these kids are already hearing from “bigger and better” programs trying to sway them prior to February’s signing day.

- According to Rivals.com Indiana’s class consists of 2 4 star recruits (rated #243 and #245 in the country), 10 3 star recruits, 4 2 star recruits, and 2 kids that are un-rated.

- Indiana’s class is heavy on defense and the trenches…and very light on skill position players. The only 2 skill position players are a Wildcat QB and a 6’5” WR/basketball player (sound familiar?).

- The class is heavy on the Midwest. The farthest West that a commit hails from is Kansas – with Ohio the farthest East.

- According to Rivals.com IU has gotten verbals from 5 of the top 15 recruits in Indiana, with a few more possibilities in there. (Purdue’s recruiting strategy of avoiding the home state at all costs seems to help here…).

There are a lot of factors that go into recruiting – coaching stability might be the most over-looked…but this year IU has their trump card – the state of the art weight room (and largest in the nation) that was part of the new stadium addition last year. The only thing left to do is go out and improve on the field as well. A bowl season will go a long way in getting these commits to ignore the other schools and sign on the dotted line as a Hoosier in February.

I’ll see if I can find some time in the near future to breakdown the class by position. IUs 2011 recruiting class is definitely off to a strong start.