Curt Cignetti is building the staff, and, off the field, Matt Wilson is the common bond.
After Cignetti hired away Wilson from North Carolina State to become Indiana's new general manager of football, Wilson helped land Blake Jackson from Arkansas State in an operations role.
The duo worked together previously at Tennessee.
Add another familiar name with SEC roots to the new Indiana staff: Mike Ferrara.
Sources told FootballScoop that Ferrara has accepted Indiana's director of player personnel position.
He spent the past two years on staff under Will Redmond at LSU.
Ferrara, Jackson, Redmond and Wilson all trace parts of their journeys to shared time together on Rocky Top.
But Ferrara has worked now at three different SEC programs; in addition to his undergraduate time at Tennessee, he worked at Texas A&M before he was hired at LSU by Redmond in 2022. He also had a stint with the Cleveland Browns.
Cignetti has placed strong emphasis on revamping Indiana's personnel operations, and this hire has positioned the Hoosiers to further those efforts.
A former IU personnel director, Wilson brought back with him NFL, ACC and SEC experience when he returned to the Hoosiers.
Ferrara helped LSU sign back-to-back top-7 national classes in the 2023 and 2024 recruiting cycles, per the industry-standard 247Sports Composite.
Indiana opens the Cignetti era Aug. 31 against Florida International. Two weeks later the Hoosiers travel to Los Angeles to face UCLA in the Bruins's first-ever game as a Big Ten Conference member.