Inside Indiana Board

A degree in cell, molecular bilogy and genetics. Not a degree you hear of often in the coaching ranks. Impressive!

A few thoughts on this:

*On its face, I like this hire. Indiana clearly has a desire to make the D.C. area a priority in recruiting, and Kenny Johnson certainly helps achieve that end.

*It's also worth pointing out that Johnson brings a good deal of coaching experience to the table — he's not green on the bench, in other words — but he also brings a different kind of coaching experience. He has spent recent portions of his career working with players at the high school level, which maybe lends a different perspective to the staff than was previously there.

Not saying Bennie Seltzer was a bad coach. Of course he was, and is, and presumably will be at Samford. But when there is turnover within a coaching staff, it should be taken as an opportunity to breathe some fresh air into the staff in terms of approaches and perspectives, and Johnson ostensibly brings that.

*I've said it a thousand times and I'll say it again, Calbert Cheaney was not passed over for this job. If he doesn't have it, then he didn't want it. But I think keeping Cheaney on staff and adding Johnson is the best of both worlds, because Cheaney has brought a lot to the program, and Johnson's recruiting connections would be wasted if he weren't a full-fledged assistant.

*What's next? Well Johnson should join the staff physically pretty soon, and he will likely be involved in offseason workouts in what capacity he can according to the new rules. The April evaluation period is over, but if Indiana can get Beejay Anya on a visit (which we've been told is more and more likely to happen), then Johnson would obviously play a large role in such an event as well.

Short-term and long-term, I like this hire. I know some people are put off by hiring someone whose main appeal might be recruiting connections, but quite frankly, there's no reason why that shouldn't be a line on a coach's resume, the same as any sort of coaching experience. And again, I also come back to bringing a different perspective to the staff, which I don't think is ever a bad thing. And as HoosierJon points out, you don't often see a coach with a degree in cell, molecular biology and genetics. That's pretty impressive.