Indiana football director of athletic performance Derek Owings signed a new three-year contract Friday, an Indiana Athletics spokesperson confirmed to the Indiana Daily Student. ESPN's Pete Thamel first reported the news.
Owings was a top target for the head strength and conditioning position at USC, according to CBS Sports’ and 247 Sports’ Matt Zenitz’s report just hours before Owings and Indiana reached a new agreement.
USC parted ways with its director of football sports performance Bennie Wylie on Tuesday after three seasons with the program. Wylie followed USC head coach Lincoln Riley to Los Angeles from the University of Oklahoma in 2021. Riley first hired Wylie in 2018 to join the Sooners’ staff.
Since Riley’s first season at the helm when the Trojans went 11-3, they’ve since gone 8-5 in 2023 and 7-6 in 2024, respectively. In Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti’s first season, the Hoosiers went 11-2.
Owings, who followed Cignetti from James Madison University to Bloomington, was slated to make $535,000 with the Hoosiers prior to his new contract Friday. He previously signed a new contract with Indiana in early December.
Owings first joined Cignetti’s staff in 2020 at JMU, where he spent four seasons. Before JMU, Owings coached at Texas Tech University in 2019-20 and the University of Central Florida in 2018. He was a graduate assistant at Utah State University from 2016-18.
Owings is the fourth member from the Hoosiers’ 2024 coaching staff to be targeted by high-profile Power Four schools, joining quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri, offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan and defensive coordinator Bryant Haines.
Only Sunseri took a position elsewhere, as he is now the offensive coordinator at UCLA. He took the job with the Bruins ahead of the Hoosiers’ College Football Playoff contest against the University of Notre Dame on Dec. 20, 2024, but remained with the program until after the eventual loss.
Shanahan signed a new contract with the Hoosiers in early December — the same time Owings did. Haines also signed a new agreement in December but eventually signed a new contract with Indiana on Jan. 27 amid defensive coordinator openings at Ohio State, Penn State and Notre Dame.
Owings has now become the third to sign a new contract to remain with Cignetti and the Hoosiers.
Follow reporters Daniel Flick (@ByDanielFlick) and Dalton James (@DaltonMJames) and columnist Jhett Garrett (@jhettgarrett) for updates throughout the Indiana football offseason.
