Report: Indiana fires Kevin Wilson for player mistreatment

According to an ESPN report, several Indiana players spoke out about mistreatment by former head coach Kevin Wilson, which led to him gettting fired.

The college football coaching carousel has been taking names in the past few days. Despite Charlie Strong’s best efforts, he was fired at Texas, and we saw some real emotion on display during his final days as coach. But after a disappointing final season, many expected him to get fired.

Seeing Kevin Wilson get fired at Indiana Thursday came as a definite shock. They finished 6-6, and played the top teams in their conference very closely this year. And unlike Texas, they are bowl eligible. But Wilson didn’t even make it to the Hoosiers’ bowl game.

At first, it seemed like he was dismissed due to his overall record. Even though he received an extension prior to this season, he has a 26-47 record in six seasons at Indiana, and went .500 despite having a highly improved defensive unit under first-year defensive coordinator Tom Allen.

But a report from ESPN revealed that many players have spoken out about mistreatment under Kevin Wilson. All of them remained anonymous, but at least five current players, and one former player, were interviewed by Hoosiers officials over the past two weeks. One player’s father even told ESPN that, in 2015, his son was rushed back from concussion before the season started, and that put his life in danger. His recollection of it all is pretty harrowing:

"He was out about a week and they started a normal concussion regiment, in which he was allowed to work out for about 20 minutes and gradually increase it. But after he worked out for 20 minutes, they had him run about six miles. After that, my son was feeling fine. But when he went home, he started throwing up and his symptoms went haywire."

Kevin Wilson may have led the Hoosiers to consecutive bowl appearances, but if this is what he did to try and win, he definitely crossed the line. Indiana announced a press conference later in the day, and if Wilson is there, he will no doubt have to field questions about this.

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With Kevin Wilson gone, this definitely opens up the door for Indiana to pursue someone like Les Miles. However, they have lots of internal options to choose from, such as Tom Allen or even Tom Crean (I’m only slightly kidding there). As for Wilson, this incident may have jeopardized his chances of landing on his feet at another school.