Rutgers coach Kyle Flood made the first move today to fill three vacancies on his staff, announcing that Darrell Wilson, who spent the past 11 years as an assistant at Iowa, will be the new secondary coach.

Wilson, 54, was the former head coach at Woodrow Wilson High School in Camden, compiling a 65-18 record there from 1988-95, and served as Rutgers' running backs coach in 1999.

He will fill one of the voids created when defensive coordinator and secondary coach Robb Smith left a week ago to become linebackers coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Indications have been that Flood will promote Dave Cohen from linebackers coach to defensive coordinator.

Rutgers is also short an offensive coordinator after Dave Brock left to become the head coach at Delaware.

“It gives me great pleasure to welcome Darrell and his family home,” Flood said in a statement issued by the school. “Darrell is a proven winner on the field and a proven recruiter in the `state of Rutgers.' He brings more than a decade of Big Ten experience with him but more important than all of that, Darrell is the right person for our program.”

Wilson's Big Ten experience is significant since Rutgers will move to that conference by the 2014 football season. A 1981 graduate of Connecticut (where he was a 1-AA All-America defensive back for the Huskies), Wilson served as the outside linebackers and special teams coach for Wisconsin in 2000-01 before moving to Iowa, where he has been in charge of linebackers, special teams and, most recently, the secondary during his 11 years with the Hawkeyes.

Rivals.com named Wilson one of the nation's top 25 recruiters in February, 2011.

Tom Luicci: tluicci@starledger.com; twitter.com/tomluicci