Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity sparked Dasan McCullough flip, ignited path to Indiana’s best-ever recruiting class

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. – Indiana football has never finished with a top-five Big Ten class in the history of the modern recruiting era.

The Hoosiers’ best class came in 2019 when they finished eighth in the conference and 36th in the country. Other than that, they have been league cellar dwellers in recruiting for more than two decades.

A historic season and the right infrastructure in place with Tom Allen leading the way are changing that. 

Buoyed by the return of one of the most accomplished assistant coaches in program history and his three sons committing to the Hoosiers, a momentous recruiting run was ignited this summer that could be the next step toward Indiana seeing sustained success rather than the 2020 season being a one-off.

“The turning point”

In February, Deland McCullough announced he was coming back for a second stint with the program. In 2011-15, he oversaw Tevin Coleman’s unanimous first-team All-America season and Jordan Howard’s first-team All-Big Ten run as the Hoosiers’ running backs coach. After winning a Super Bowl ring and reaching another with the Kansas City Chiefs, McCullough returned to Bloomington as Indiana’s associate head coach/running backs coach.

Daeh McCullough, McCullough’s third son and a four-star safety in the 2023 class, committed to Indiana two months later. His oldest son, Deland McCullough II, announced his transfer to the Hoosiers from Miami (Ohio) two weeks later.

Less than 24 hours later, the highest-ranked recruit in program history put the biggest icing on the cake.

Dasan McCullough, a borderline five-star and the No. 53 overall player in the 2022 class, had been committed to Ohio State for eight months. Even during a wild week, he didn’t budge.

His dad had been hired at Indiana, and the family was moving back to Bloomington. At the same time is when Al Washington, the man who had championed McCullough as a take to the Buckeyes’ staff, was rumored to be leaving to become Tennessee’s defensive coordinator.

“People were all over the place thinking about where I was gonna go,” Dasan McCullough said. “At that time, it’s not like I was lying. I was definitely locked in with Ohio State.”

When Deland II followed up Daeh’s commitment, though, he flipped to Indiana pretty much on the spot. That decision was a product of weeks-long conversations with his older brother.

“I told Deland beforehand that if he went to IU, then I’d come too,” Dasan McCullough said. “I told my dad after I committed (to Indiana). He didn’t even know, he wasn’t even a big part of it. Really, he didn’t care where I went, he was fine with me going to Ohio State. He didn’t try to recruit me or anything.

“But when my oldest brother transferred, I called him and I just told him I was coming with him. That was the turning point. It was pretty quick, just like that.”

That’s how Daeh remembers it too.

“I’m gonna be honest, as soon as my dad got the job, Dasan was still locked in,” Daeh McCullough said. “I don’t think he had any second thoughts of going to Indiana as soon as my dad got the job. He was still locked in. I talked to him about it, and he wasn’t budging at all. It was definitely when my older brother made the move and decided to transfer that’s when we started having talks about it.

“It was more really more Dasan and D talking about it, kind of alone, solo. Really, it was Deland making jokes to Dasan about coming. But eventually Dasan was just having talks with the coaches and just figured out what they were gonna use him as and everything like that. It fell perfectly with what he wanted to do. So it was kind of just a perfect situation for him.”

Dasan McCullough: Vision of versatility

Family is why Dasan McCullough made the move, but the difference in Allen and defensive coordinator Charlton Warren’s vision and development plan for him was another major selling point.

At Ohio State, McCullough says the plan was for him to be an outside linebacker at the SAM spot. He was good with that plan, but the Hoosiers staff detailed to him how they would use him as a versatile, movable chess piece.

McCullough has been listed as a safety, an edge player and an athlete in his recruiting profiles throughout his high school career. He is 6-foot-5, 220 pounds heading into his senior season, and he may not be done growing. He’s been compared often to former Clemson star and Arizona Cardinals linebacker Isaiah Simmons.

Both played high school ball in Kansas and actually worked out together a few times. Even Simmons told McCullough that he sees a lot of himself in McCullough when he was his age. There’s a lot of room for McCullough to be moved around on a defense just as Simmons was, and that matched up with what he wanted.

“I’m still gonna be playing outside linebacker (at Indiana). The difference is I’m just moving around from outside linebacker to defensive end too,” Dasan McCullough said. “Because we’re running a Georgia-type SEC defense. So third-down packages and stuff like that, it moves around a lot. It’s just the versatility part that I like and obviously the chance to play with my brothers and under Coach Allen. Everybody loves Coach Allen and all the coaches over there.”

There has been proof of that in the recruiting pudding.

McCullough was the second commitment in the Hoosiers’ 2022 class. Now, they have racked up 14 commitments and hold the No. 5-ranked class in the Big Ten and rank in the top 20 across college football. That includes a hot July in which they landed Cincinnati running back Gi’Bran Payne, Indianapolis receiver Omar Cooper Jr. and Fort Wayne (Ind.) offensive lineman Demon Moore in a three-week span.

If they didn’t gain another commitment in the class, it would still rank as the second-best in Indiana history at just a few points behind the 2019 class that had 23 commitments.

“I think our trajectory is going up, and I think we just gonna keep getting better,” said Daeh McCullough, who remains the lone commitment in the 2023 class. “Coach Allen, he’s a great head coach. He’s just a great guy in general. The way he treats his players, it’s like, you can ask anybody in a private conversation and nobody would have anything bad to say. Like, nobody. I mean, he’s a great coach. Everybody’s a great coach. So they pull in great players. It’s just gonna keep rising.”