But while Wilson has never been a head coach before (unless you count that year he spent at Foard High School in his home state of North Carolina), he’s been one of the most successful assistant coaches in the country for more than a decade. At Northwestern he convinced coach Randy Walker to shift to a spread offense, thereby making the Wildcats a perennial Big Ten competitor; at Oklahoma he did the same thing, expanding Bob Stoops’ offense toward the edges of the field and shaping quarterback Sam Bradford into a first-round draft pick.

All this was accomplished by moving quickly; Bradford’s strength, Wilson says, is that he was able to process information incredibly fast, “like the Internet.” (Wilson relies largely on video as a teaching tool, because he doesn’t believe kids have the patience to read anymore.) Even when he is a hard-ass, he does it with swiftness: If a player fumbles once during practice, he is immediately pulled for the rest of the session without a word. In Wilson’s practices, one drill melds into another, and sets are run with urgency, up and down the field, with the music serving as a metronome. (At one point, the team’s placekicker does the worm.) Acefor3Acefor3Coltfor3 … “You gotta learn to play when it’s cluttered up,” he says. “Things are going on, still gotta listen, still gotta concentrate.”

Around the Hall is recommended reading from the Inside the Hall crew. So go ahead, get your read on.

(Note: Our coverage does not typically include football and there are no plans to begin covering any additional IU sports, but on this historic day for IU football, it’s only fair to show some love.)

+ Gunner Kiel, the nation’s No. 1 pro-style quarterback and brother of IU quarterback Dusty Kiel, committed to IU and told Dustin Dopirak of the Herald-Times that a big part of his decision was a belief in the future of Hoosier football.

+ Tom Fornelli of CBSSports.com writes that Kevin Wilson pulled off the biggest recruiting upset in school history.

+ Kiel’s coach at Columbus East, Bob Gaddis, tells Kyle Neddenriep of The Indianapolis Star that his quarterback will be a sponge at the next level.

+ The Columbus Republic has additional reaction from Gaddis on Kiel’s decision and the East coach says he was not at all surprised by the decision.

+ Rick Bozich of The Louisville Courier-Journal writes that Kiel’s commitment gives Wilson and the IU staff credibility and momentum in building the 2012 recruiting class.

+ This MSNBC.com headline says it all about reaction from across the country: Nation’s top 2012 QB opts for … Indiana?

+ Brian Bennett of ESPN.com writes that Kiel’s commitment is “unquestionably outstanding news for long-suffering Indiana fans.”

(Photo credit: Indy Star)

The football team, which moved to 3-0 with an impressive 41-24 win over Akron, will be in town to open Big Ten play against everyone’s favorite school, Illinois.

For those of you keeping score at home, our friends in South Bend are 0-3. Just throwing that out there in case you’ve been under a rock since the beginning of this month.

Along with the football game, Coach Sampson and staff will host Tyler Zeller for his official visit.

Zeller was at North Carolina this past weekend visiting with coach Roy Williams and staff. Notre Dame and Purdue will get visits down the road in October.

So overall, it should be an interesting and exciting weekend. Can IU beat Illinois and open the season 4-0? Will Tyler Zeller see a future for himself in Bloomington? We’ll find out soon enough.

After week two, the Hoosiers are 2-0. The Michigan Wolverines, and the Notre Dame Fighting Touchdown Jesuses, are 0-2. There is sincere, genuine, unabashed happiness at this news, because it combines the best of both worlds: the defeat (however indirect) of our enemies, and our own success. Does it get any better?

In all seriousness, though, this little batch of success might add up to something. I know, I know: I say this every year. I said it in 2005, when I covered IU, and when a trip to a bowl game meant an expenses-paid trip for me to, like, Detroit. In college, that sounded spectacular.

But there is reason for optimism, because the Hoosiers aren’t barely squeaking by the teams they used to struggle with; they’re winning big and easy, the way decent D-1 teams should during the dawn of the season. There is a passing attack and a spread offense and a decent D and … some semblance of a confident, solid football team. At the very least, we don’t have to wait until Midnight Madness to get excited about 2007.