Hoosier Football Recruiting: Is IU on Its Way to Its Best Recruiting Class Ever?

There always has to be a disclaimer for posts like these because recruiting is a very tough business to have pegged. It is even more so when you are still in the territory of speculation. Trying to predict what will happen in recruiting is like trying to guess what dead animal your cat is going to bring you next. You can always make an educated guess based on the environment but you never truly know.

With that out of the way, the much more educated members of the media believe and I tend to agree with them that IU could be on its way to a monumental shift in the football program. The Hoosiers were already to flip Indianapolis native and Ole Miss commit Antonio Allen back to his home state school, but it is starting to appear that he was only the first of several dominoes that will fall.

Indiana fans were feeling pretty good about the direction of the program after the Allen commit alone but now you can start to get downright excited for the future. Allen and other Hoosier commits (specifically Chase Dutra and Isaac Griffith) have been taking the change of role from recruited to recruiter very seriously. All three have started working other highly rated Indianapolis guys that have committed to other schools to reconsider. It appears to be working.

4 star defensive end from Pike High School, David Kenney announced this past Sunday that he had decommited from Iowa and was looking to commit to another school pretty quickly. As it turns out that school is going to be Indiana. Prior to his revoking of his commitment to Iowa he had visited IU for every home game this season. It quickly became obvious that he was going to be a Hoosier flip. As of today he has not officially committed to the Hoosiers but going by his Twitter account it is going to happen either today or tomorrow.

Another recruit that just came back into play and IU is a heavy favorite for would be Darius Latham. Latham is a 4 star defensive tackle who had originally elected to play football at Wisconsin. However, his mind seems to have changed as well. He has confirmed he will be attending Hoosier Hysteria along with several other football recruits on Saturday. This is especially helpful since he could pretty easily walk on to the basketball team. The Rivals Top 250 recruit is also a hell of a basketball player and moves extremely well for his 6'6" 290 lbs frame. His strength could be a real aid in practice against some of our post players.

IU has also been recruiting and the commits have been pressuring a few other highly touted Indianapolis players to try and flip their allegiances. Elijah Daniel a 4 star DE from Avon has been attending home games and has let it known that though he is committed to Clemson he is still shopping around. Tom Crean has gotten in on the recruitment of the 109th ranked prospect as well. Daniel tweeted two days ago that he was texting Crean as well as Antonio Allen. So there's another reason to like what Tom Crean brings to the table. He's even finding time to help recruit for the football program.

Finally a few other committed names to keep an eye on. Carmel linebacker and Iowa commit John Kenny's name has also been kicked around of a possible swap, but his camp has been very quiet on whether that is the case. He has visited IU this year since committing to Iowa but to say that is a clear sign of him switching would be reading too much into things. The last name I'll throw out here is probably just a pipe dream but Warren Central LB Tim Kimbrough also has had guys in his ear about possibly making the switch. Signs of him doing that are even less than Kenny's but it is still a person of interest who IU recruits will likely continue to work on until signing day.

In the end, Indiana could be walking into 2013 with its best class it has ever put together. Allen is already a solid building block and with Kenney getting into the mix along with the likelihood of Latham that is three guys that IU could build around for four years. If Daniel, Kenny or Kimbrough fall that would just be icing on the cake. But that icing could mean a home grown defense built to win a Big Ten Championship. Those recruits alone would compose a whole linebacking corps, 3/4 of a defensive line and a do it all safety. That's something Indiana football fans can get excited for.