The Patriots have a history of looking past the combine and going after some unheralded college talent. In the past, that’s allowed them to find players like Julian Edelman and Sebastian Vollmer. (For what it’s worth, Wes Welker and Troy Brown were also non-combine invitees.)

Illinois defensive back Tavon Wilson didn’t get the call to come to Indianapolis in late February to compete in the NFL’s underwear Olympics either, but that didn’t stop New England from pulling the trigger on Wilson last weekend, making him a surprise second-round pick, 48th overall.

There was debate over the pick: Should the Patriots have used a second-round selection on a player who was off almost everyones’ radar screen? But shortly after the choice was made, Patriots coach Bill Belichick reminded people that New England has been down this road before.

“[It was a] similar situation with [Sebastian] Vollmer a couple of years ago,” Belichick said when asked about Wilson. “How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don’t know. We can’t really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can.

“He played plenty. You can see him plenty at Illinois,” Belichick added. “You can see him against whoever you want to see him against: all the Big Ten schools, Arizona State, teams that throw the ball. He’s playing corner, he’s playing safety, he’s playing the inside positions, the nickel position, the dime position.”

And it was just that sort of versatility that Wilson’s former defensive coordinator believes drew the Patriots to the defensive back.

“They saw him at safety, saw him at corner, saw him in run support and saw him in coverage,” said Vic Koenning, who was the defensive coordinator at Illinois in 2010 and 2011, and also worked as the interim head coach last season. “They saw him being able to do things that presented some matchup problems for some offenses. In my mind, it’s because he was able to do so many things -- that was probably why he went so high.

“His secondary coach was Mike Gilhammer -- who was with us at Illinois last year before joining the Colts -- and I think probably some of the confidence that he was coached by a guy who had been in the NFL probably didn’t hurt him.”

A 6-foot, 205-pound defensive back, the 22-year-old was named honorable mention All-Big Ten in 2011 after finishing the year with 81 tackles (51 solo) in 13 starts. For his collegiate career, the former team captain ended his college career with 50 games played, 214 total tackles (141 solo), 12.5 tackles for loss, three interceptions and 22 pass breakups while playing both corner and safety.

According to Koenning, Wilson’s versatility was initially borne out of necessity. Wilson started his college career at corner, but moved to safety after a run of injuries. Koenning believes that, at least at this stage of his career, Wilson is more “comfortable” playing corner.

“This past year, we moved him to safety with the promise that once we got over the hump and the guys came back from injury, we could move him back to corner, because I think that was ultimately where he was more comfortable,” he said of Wilson. “We stood by our word, and played him at what we called ‘boundary corner.’

“This season, we played more sub packages, and he was a nickel guy. We moved him all over, and he did a really good job for us. He was definitely the leader in the secondary -- he probably watched more film that anybody else, and he ended up doing a really good job for us.”

Koenning, who is now the associate head coach for defense and inside linebackers coach at the University of North Carolina, has seen the game change over the last few years, and said that with the emphasis on spread offenses, you need versatile defensive backs, and he believes that Wilson can fill the bill.

“The spread offense in the NFL has kind of made linebackers obsolete in many ways,” Koenning said. “Offenses can now work on mismatches with linebackers in the passing game. If you have a safety that’s big enough who won’t embarrass themselves in run support, you have the best of both worlds.

“What you have in a guy like Tavon is someone who has played enough man -- both press and off the line -- to make the adjustment. He’s comfortable with different zones, and he’s comfortable near the box. We did a bunch of different stuff with him.”

Koenning vigorously defended Wilson as a second-round pick, saying there’s “only one person that needs to make that decision or not, and that’s Bill Belichick.” And he believes that the selection of Wilson will pay dividends, both on and off the field.

“In the pre-draft process, I had a player personnel guy ask me an interesting question about Tavon,” Koenning said. “Now, I convinced a team a few years back they should take a chance on a guy named DeMarcus Ware, so I have some credibility here. Anyway, he asked ‘Does Tavon love football?’ He does.

“If you’ve ever been a coach, you know that there are guys in your locker room with different personalities. There are guys who tolerate football, and there are guys who love it. You want guys who love the game, and Tavon is one of those guys.”