Wilson’s Rebuild Hits Roadblock

“Welcome to Indiana football, Coach!”

Every longtime Hoosier fan had to be thinking something along those lines as the clock ran out on the first head coaching loss of Kevin Wilson’s IU career.

“Now you know what we’re used to dealing with.”

A 27-20 loss to the Ball State Cardinals is obviously not the way that many envisioned Wilson’s tenure starting. Judging by an offseason stuffed to the gills with tailgate tours, recruiting windfall, talk show controversy and “Win Today”, it’s entirely possible that nothing short of Gunner Kiel descending from the heavens to personally smite Indiana’s first opponent would live up to the hype.

The beginning of the game was promising enough, as the Hoosiers grounded and pounded their way to the end zone on a 15 play opening drive that ended with them converting a 4^th and goal power run for a touchdown.

It was pure Big Ten football, and it was the high point of the game. The next offensive drive sputtered, Ball State scored and Wilson’s coronation devolved into a dogfight that Indiana would eventually lose.

Hoosier fans that had been hoping for quick, on-field results doubtlessly left the game disappointed (after all, it doesn’t look like IU did anything resembling “Winning Today”, unless we’re counting the offense getting to the line more quickly).

The team didn’t carry themselves with a readily apparent new energy, the Oklahoma playbook didn’t translate to an automatic 40 points and Wilson definitely didn’t bring over any members of the Oklahoma roster.

The rationalizations are already swirling: maybe that’s easier to stomach if we take a look at the roster.

Between a totally unproven quarterback, a trio of unproven running backs, and a defense proven last year to be pretty horrific, expectations may have been a little too lofty out of the gate.

Looking at this roster before Wilson was even hired, it looked like the definition of a 3-9 or 2-10 football team, and though only one game has been played, it’s not a stretch to suggest that Wilson doesn’t improve this team right away.

At the same time though, the loss didn’t seem quite like business as usual for the Hoosiers. Indiana may have looked more like a MAC team than anything else on Saturday night, but Wilson was surprisingly willing to admit as much. He definitely wasn’t Bill Lynch. He didn’t go out of his way to praise Ball State, and he was brutally honest with his assessment of the game:

“We’re not going to panic, we’re going to get better… but we’re going to need to see some serious improvement if we’re going to be knock on wood worth a flip this year.”

Those aren’t the words of a head football coach who plans on accepting this kind of performance a regular basis.

Rome wasn't built in a night, and neither will Kevin Wilson's IU football program.

The way Wilson handled his inaugural press conference was a beacon of hope on an otherwise dreary evening. He answered every question matter-of-factly, his body language no different than any of his other press conferences. He looked like he wasn’t particularly surprised or dismayed at the outcome of the game, just annoyed by it.

Following his cue, maybe that’s the most accurate diagnosis of Saturday’s result: an annoyance that will pass with enough work and development.

This game shows that Indiana football definitely won’t be an easy or quick fix. On the contrary, it will take some time to build properly.

But you can bet that Kevin Wilson and his staff won’t be taking any days off.

Click Here to check out the Indiana vs. Ball State Game Notebook.