DeKALB – Being the new guy among some unfamiliar faces isn’t something that NIU cornerbacks coach Aaron Wilkins treats as an obstacle.

Doing so would run counter to the ideals he wants his young group of cornerbacks to embody.

“I do probably have the youngest (cornerback position) room around, but that’s OK,” Wilkins said. “That’s a challenge I’m willing to accept because maturity is a mindset. That’s one of the first messages I had for those guys was just, ‘Hey guys, maturity is a mindset. Yeah, you may be young by age, but it doesn’t define who we are. Somebody has to take the lead, and we all have to go compete our tails off for this job.’ There’s talent there. There definitely is.”

Wilkins has attempted to make his mark on the program early with energy and a commitment to drawing positive attention and pride to the program.

In posting a “fun fact of the day,” to Twitter, Wilkins (@CoachAWilkins) has tried to continue fueling the pride in the program and NIU as a whole, posting facts related to things such as NIU’s win over Power Five programs, statistics related to multisport athletes, NIU’s success in bowl games and more.

“You’ve got use social media to your advantage as a tool,” Wilkins said. “You need to use it, and I think coach [Thomas] Hammock does a great job of being able to get ourselves out there.”

Wilkins, who will help running backs coach Atif Austin with special teams, will recruit in the northwest suburbs, as well as the area between the suburbs toward Wisconsin and the northwest region of Illinois.

Having worked in recruitment at Reedley College, a community college in California, it’s familiar territory for Wilkins.

“If you could breathe, we were trying to recruit you,” Wilkins said. “You had to recruit 800 [players] to recruit a full team.”

Although the Huskies have made early noise on the recruiting trail in Hammock’s celebrated “state of Chicago,” Wisconsin and even New Jersey, Wilkins takes the attitude of sticking to one’s guns when interested in a potential athlete playing for NIU.

Star rankings, he said, mean little.

“You can’t be afraid to be that team that’s the only one to offer,” Wilkins said. “It doesn’t matter. If you can play, you can play. Don’t be scared. Trust your eyes and trust your evaluation.”

And when it comes to blocking out fear, cornerbacks – Wilkins played safety at Reedley College and the University of San Diego – need to have a short memory. Wilkins believes cornerbacks have to be locked in more than any other position.

The Huskies would be best to fully embrace this thinking after a rough finish to the 2018 season from the young secondary.

“At the cornerback position, you have to just be wired different. It’s the ultimate position in terms of you have to have the right mindset all the time,” Wilkins said. “It’s the only position where you have to really recover within one second of getting beat for a touchdown. You have to have a short memory constantly. But at the same time, you have to develop a mindset of dominance where every time that you see a guy line up against you, you just absolutely want to dominate him to where … he feels that you impose your will on him.”

Coming into NIU, Wilkins knew he would treat the players he was coaching with a clean slate but is hoping to push them in the direction they want to go in life. He went from a high school coach of multiple sports to pursuing a collegiate coaching career.

Wilkins still is finding that direction himself, as this was a new opportunity for his newborn daughter, Abigail, and his wife, Carissa, who is looking for professional advancement herself. She is looking to get into a residency position in the Chicago or Rockford areas after graduating from medical school at Liberty. Wilkins expects his family to join him in June. Being away from his family has been “tough,” Wilkins said.

For now, Wilkins has to plug through and prove that maturity is in fact a mindset.

“I’m the type of coach I pour everything I have, my whole entire life into them to get them to [go] in the direction they want to go,” Wilkins said.