Changes to the Sport Require Changes to Recruiting Approach
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Written by: TJ Inman (@TJHoosierHuddle)
College football has changed a great deal off the field in the past few years. The recruiting calendar has been adjusted, the transfer portal was introduced and Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) has become a gigantic factor in both player retention and how programs attract talent. A different landscape necessitates a different approach and Tom Allen has revamped how his program will handle the all-important task of recruiting.
The first step for Allen was to bring in a new mind that had exposure to big-time recruiting and create a new position to approach the new college football landscape. Director of recruiting Lee Wilbanks left for Mississippi State so Allen turned to the SEC and brought in Steven Ruzic to be the newly created General Manager for Indiana University football. Ruzic has worked at Ole Miss, Minnesota, North Carolina and most recently, Auburn. For the Tigers, he oversaw all recruiting evaluations and the recruiting pipeline along with managing the entire recruiting department. Allen believes Ruzic offers a lot of things that can help his program.
“First of all, I like the fact that he’s been at some places a lot like us, some places like us in regards to how we approach things, so you get a broad spectrum of different ways of doing things across the country from different conferences and some places where you have to do a really great job of being a tremendous evaluator and finding those guys,” Allen said to media on Sunday about Ruzic.
“I rely on that person to be able to be a guy that can help us as a staff. While we’re busy getting ourselves schematically ready each week, he’s sitting there looking for players across the country that fit with us, has enough connections in the areas where we have had success recruiting and has those relationships already built which is important to me. Also, just the creativity, kind of the forward thinking, marketing mindset in recruiting, the maximization of technology, graphics, just connecting with players where they live. I think just taking us to another level in that regard, he brings that and his experience, places he’s been.”
Tom Allen specifically mentioned the transfer portal as an area that he felt a new approach would be beneficial for the Indiana Hoosiers. This period of time can be chaotic as a flood of players, well north of 1,000, entered the transfer market on December 5 or shortly thereafter. Allen’s staff was already on the road recruiting and evaluating your options while also recruiting and trying to keep committed players in your class is a whole lot to handle. Adding an expert at evaluation seemed like a logical move.
“Just trying to be able to get ahead of that whole process and add a whole new division for that to me is what we’re going to be able to do and then continue to do a great job evaluating our high school players. That part has not changed. But this new dimension that we have to have is the ability to maximize that whole process and so get those guys evaluated and to be able to do a great job of overseeing that, organizing that and dividing our staff accordingly. Bringing in a guy like Steve with his experience in this area, and to be able to help us grow in that part of our recruiting is going to be very, very important,” Allen explained.
Fans should expect to see an increased Indiana football presence on popular social media platforms and more creative approaches to recruiting that has been present in the past for the Hoosiers. Evaluating players and finding players that can excel in the Big Ten that might be a bit overlooked by others is a massive challenge but one that Ruzic and Allen need to master. Indiana cannot match Big Ten giants like Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State in recruiting but they can get close to schools like Iowa, Purdue and Rutgers. If they do a better job of identifying talent, landing that talent and then developing those individuals, the Hoosiers could get back to making the postseason on a consistent basis.