When committing to IU in June, high school senior quarterback Tommy Stevens said some interesting words to the Indy Star about other big-name schools that may come along and offer him a ?scholarship.
“If other teams were going to offer, they would have offered a long time ago if I was that important,” Stevens said. “If they just now realized they are going to offer, I’m a backup plan. I don’t want to go anywhere where I’m a backup plan.”
Stevens rescinded his commitment from IU and announced Monday he will now go to Penn State.
Stevens was the backup plan.
Penn State Head Coach James Franklin began chasing Stevens hard last month when former PSU commit Brandon Wimbush switched his commitment to Notre Dame.
Irony aside, the 3-star quarterback prospect is a far bigger loss for IU than he is a gain for Penn State.
Stevens was the centerpiece of IU’s 2015 recruiting class and the guy that had the best chance at taking IU football to a higher level.
He was going to be ?Sudfeld’s heir.
The 6-foot-4-inch player is a strong dual-threat quarterback that had the ability to possibly mesh the two things Tre Roberson and junior Nate Sudfeld separately brought to the table, the run and the pass.
It was easy to see Stevens going to sit behind Sudfeld for a year, develop as a passer and learn from a veteran quarterback. Then he would take over the Hoosiers.
I don’t want to overstate his abilities. He is only a teenager that could have never panned out, but I think he will be a very good college football player.
It is not just that IU is losing a good quarterback prospect. It is the way things are going so poorly so fast for this program that it feels like a landslide where debris begins falling slowly, then all at once.
The big thing Kevin Wilson had going for him was momentum in the right direction.
No, he wasn’t winning yet, but he was increasing his wins each year and he was bringing in high quantities of foundational talent that has made this team evidently better as a whole in my eyes.
Then, Sudfeld went out for the season with a shoulder injury, and we cannot see the progress that has actually been made.
Now, IU is at risk of losing all eight Big Ten games in a year in which it was supposed to make the jump to being a bowl-eligible team.
The loss of Stevens may be the tipping point to more bad momentum for IU football.
That positive momentum Wilson was building is starting to go away, and now recruits may start backing away more from a 3-6 football team that just lost its headline recruit.
It will be harder to snag other quality recruits than it was when Stevens committed, because now things are trending in the wrong direction.
High school kids IU chases after will not be very attracted to the product IU is unfortunately putting out there each Saturday for the rest of the season.
I don’t blame Wilson for any of this. I think he has done a quality job of changing the culture.
The Hoosiers had been the cool, exciting new offense in Bloomington that people wanted to join, or join the defense that would make the team complete.
A few transfers and a bad injury later and that “coolness” is gone.
Tommy Stevens switching his commitment could be worse than just losing a ?quarterback prospect.
Or, this young team will come back and have a very strong season next year and bring recruits back in. I think they will have a good 2015 ?season.
The 2015 recruiting class, on the other hand, may be an off year.
brodmill@indiana.edu
