BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana coach Kevin Wilson wants his older players to lead and everybody to remain unified.
Wilson said that he challenged his seniors Monday to help right the program after an embarrassing loss at North Texas, and to achieve that goal immediately — before the 2011 season slips away.
"I told them, 'I don't know if you bargained and signed up for me, but here I am and here's what we're doing. The bottom line is you're down to the end of your time,'" Wilson said Tuesday. "'And yeah, we're playing young guys but what do you want out of this? How do you want to go out?' I'd love to see those guys play as good as they can down the stretch."
The Hoosiers need them to play well.
Wilson is just 1-3 in his first season at Indiana, hardly the kind of start he grew accustomed to at his last stop, Oklahoma.
He pulled starting quarterback Edward Wright-Baker in the second half last weekend and watched Dusty Kiel throw two TD passes to rally the Hoosiers from a 24-0 fourth-quarter deficit to 24-21.
Three of Indiana's top receivers — Damarlo Belcher, Kofi Hughes and Duwyce Wilson — are battling injuries. Kicker Nick Freeland and offensive tackle Josh Hager are out for the season with knee injuries, and defensive end-linebacker Kevin Bush, who served with the Army in Iraq, left the team.
Once promising running back Darius Willis may be done, too. He is still trying to recover from last year's knee surgery and Wilson said the Hoosiers are petitioning the Big Ten to get a medical waiver but that Willis' career is "basically over."
All the commotion has created rumblings about a rift, a notion players and coaches disputed Tuesday.
"We believe the only way we're going to win is to work hard and stay together every day," defensive tackle Nicholas Sliger said.
The more urgent question is whether the Hoosiers can get things fixed?
Indiana has already lost to teams from the Mid-American Conference (Ball State) and Sun Belt (North Texas) and now faces a brutal gauntlet of Big Ten powers. Saturday's league opener is against Penn State (3-1), which has never lost to Indiana.
Then the Hoosiers host No. 24 Illinois before visiting No. 7 Wisconsin and Iowa.
The battle between Wright-Baker and Kiel could become a full-fledged quarterback controversy, too. Wright-Baker went 23 of 40 for 209 yards with no scores and one interception Saturday. Kiel, who lost the starting job this fall, was 7 of 12 for 145 yards and the two scores.
For now, the starting job still belongs to Wright-Baker, though it's clear Wilson expects more out of both.
"When you play quarterback in the collegiate level, there's a lot of stress. There's a lot going on. Right now those young men have so much going on, it's hard to play quarterback. They're laboring to do things," Wilson said. "Last week, I saw one of our guys watching TV in the players lounge and I guess that's OK. But he was 50 yards away from watching film and seeing what coverage they were going to play."
It's a message Wilson has been trying to send.
In some cases, it has gotten through. In others, it's still percolating.
"I think there is a gap there," receiver Dre Muhammad said. "When you look at coach Wilson and his history, he comes from a program that was potentially winning national championships. At Indiana, we've not been too successful, so we have to adjust to what he wants."
Or face the consequences.
As much as Wilson hopes his seniors are part of the solution, there are no guarantees in Bloomington.
Defensively, the Hoosiers have already done away with the first and second teams at practice and reopened the competition. Offensively, it's not quite the same.
And if Wilson doesn't get results, well, there could be more changes.
"Old guys need to get a loving feeling back into the way they're going about their business, instead of going through the motions because as they go through the motions, the young guy by evaluation is just as good as the old guy," Wilson said. "I've got more value playing the young guy and that's not slamming the old guy. The old guy has got to earn his right."