Indiana continues to improve its roster through the transfer portal and with less than a month before the start of its 2021 campaign, it continued that trend.
The program announced the addition of Ole Miss graduate transfer Jonathan Haynes on Thursday.
Haynes started 17 of 21 career games at safety with Ole Miss, finishing with 86 tackles.
Despite having a talented defense and experienced defense already, Tom Allen is thrilled to add the Mississippi native to the roster.
""We are excited to add Jonathan to our football team," Tom Allen said. "Our staff knows him well and he fits our culture. Jonathan brings a ton of experience to our defense and will be invaluable as a member of our special teams units."
Indiana brings back eight members of its secondary who have played critical roles over the past two seasons, including three safeties.
That secondary totaled 17 interceptions a season - leading the Big Ten.
"Not exactly sure yet, but we are a three-safety defense, so there are a lot of opportunities there. It gives us a lot of depth and the special teams area is somewhere I see him flourishing," Allen said of where Haynes fits. "He is extremely physical player with really good speed, length and athleticism. We just have to figure out where the best need is there to give us the best opportunity for him and for us to maximize his skill set. We will be evaluating that."
With new defensive coordinator Charlton Warren, having versatility is something that he likes every player on his defensive unit to have. For Tom Allen, it was a no brainer to bring in Haynes to the IU locker room.
"He brings a lot of athleticism. He is over 200 pounds, at about 205, and close to 6-foot. We played against him in the bowl game, so we got to study him in that regard, as far as scouting a team or your opponents and he was their starting safety the last couple years there," Allen said.
Haynes played for IU safeties coach Jason Jones at Ole Miss and that relationship led to a comfort between the Ole Miss DB and the Indiana staff.
"Once again, we have added a young man that our staff already knows through previous relationships with him. Coach [Jason] Jones was coaching on that staff [at Ole Miss] years ago," Allen said. "... we reached out to him because we had guys that have coached him on our staff, and guys that know him very well [on our team]."
Already, Haynes is making an impact for Indiana in a short period of time.
"Today (Thursday) was his first practice with us and he was already out there making plays," Allen added. "He has to go through the acclimation process, so he was just in helmet and spiders today and didn't [participate] in all of the periods. He showed out in terms of making plays."
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