Wildcats and Wilson share old connection

It hasn’t been long since a pair of crimson-clad IU coaches wore the royal purple of the Northwestern Wildcats.

IU Coach Kevin Wilson was Northwestern’s offensive coordinator from 1999-2001, and Co-offensive Coordinator Kevin Johns coached Wildcats running backs from 2004 to 2005 and wide receivers from 2006 to 2010.

When Wilson was the offensive coordinator under head coach Randy Walker at Miami (Ohio), the two ran a conventional offense, which Wilson compared to that of former IU Coach Bill Mallory.

They found success at Miami, racking up 59 wins against 36 losses and five ties. When opportunity knocked for Walker to coach at Northwestern, he took the job, and Wilson followed.

“I was kind of working for Coach Walker as much as I was working for Northwestern,” Wilson said. “The only reason I was there was because he left Miami, and I was working for him, so I consider myself a little bit more of a Randy Walker guy than a Northwestern guy.”

After they went to Northwestern in 1999, posted a 3-8 record, scored just 141 total points for the season and saw numerous players graduate, they knew they had to make a change. The team was without certain position players who were integral to an effective rushing attack, which forced them to look at tweaking its offense.

“The only reason we did it was out of necessity,” Wilson said. “We didn’t have tight ends. We didn’t have fullbacks, and Coach Walker wanted to run the ball, and we were one of the first teams that went to the gun spread and the quarterback run.”

The two visited, among others, offensive guru Rich Rodriguez, then the offensive coordinator at Clemson, to learn the zone-read spread offense. The offense puts emphasis on the quarterback making split-second decisions on whether to keep the ball, hand it off to a running back or execute a number of other plays.

The change worked for the Wildcats, and they garnered an 8-4 (6-2) record in 2000, tying for first in the Big Ten.

The offense averaged 36.8 points per game. Defensive Tackles Coach Mark Hagen, who coached at Purdue at the time, got a good look at the Wildcat offense.

“All the zone read that you see with the quarterback run game, they were one of the first crews to run it,” Hagen said. “Coach Rodriguez had kind of been doing it, dabbling in it, but I know Coach Wilson brought that to the Midwest.”

This style of offense intrigued Walker and Wilson, but they still wanted to stay true to their philosophy of running the ball.

“It was a version of the spread, but it was more run the ball than it was to throw it, like Purdue was doing,” Hagen said. “That was their niche back then.”

At the time, Johns was a graduate assistant under Wilson at Northwestern. He returned to Evanston in 2004 and became the passing game coordinator in 2008.
Though he was highly involved with Northwestern’s offense as recently as last season, he said he doesn’t have much to offer as a scouting report.

“Northwestern’s empty. They play fast. They run the option. They have great athletes out in space, and the film says all those things,” Johns said, “I’m not sure that I’m giving them much that they can’t see on the film.”

Northwestern runs a formation that puts the quarterback, either Dan Persa or Kain Colter, alone in the backfield, which spreads out the offense. This also spreads the defense out, making it easier for the offense to find gaps.

Hagen said the Northwestern offense has undergone some changes since Wilson’s time in Evanston and will present IU’s defense with some challenges.

“Number one, they spread out your defense and then (have) the ability to run or throw it, the ability to go empty — the ability to go different tempos,” Hagen said. “There’s just a lot to prepare for defensively.”